Europe so far, and the hardest bike races of my life.

jdurrin Uncategorized 2

I already have found myself falling into the lifestyle of a bike racer in a cycling house. I have all the time in the world to get everything done, but laying around and “recovering” seems like such a better idea. I’ve been on some great bike rides on sections of the Tour of Flanders cobbles and experienced the small farm roads of Europe. A lot different than back home in western MA.

There are so many things that have happened since I have been in Europe, but way to many to talk about all of them… SO i will talk about the most exciting ones so far.

Spain is a really beautiful country and the food there is unbelievable! “Pinchos” are thing to get when you go out to eat. They are basically little sandwiches with all sorts of tasty stuff inside of them for under 2 euros! Soccer over here is a little crazy. I was fortunate enough to meet up with a friend the first night I was in Bilbao Spain and go out to a local bar when a local soccer team was playing. It was chaos and the most rowdy people ever. After the game there was a lot of drinking in the streets!

I raced the World Cup in Igorre Spain on December 4th. It was extremely difficult to say the least. I made it 45 mins before i got lapped. Not to bad considering the laps were only 5 and a half minutes long. I won some money and got some good World Cup UCI points! Success! After the race myself and the two people I was staying with got invited to have dinner with the organization, and it was an amazing local meal. They fed us so much and drank lots of wine and they welcomed us back next year for the race!

 

Now I was headed up to Belgium where I am staying at The Chainstay in Oudenaarde Belgium. The house is amazing and Gregg and Holly (the owners) are really great people. There are currently 5 other cyclists in the house. Myself and Craig Richey are well outnumbered by the Brits that are here and they like to try and teach us “proper” English…

As a typical tourist I wanted to check out some local tourist spots. So Gabby Day was nice enough to show me around Gent. It was an amazing old town with a huge Castle and a really nice Cathedral. We walked around most of the day, sat in coffee shops, ate belgian waffles, took a trip to the chocolate store and then got a nice dinner where I tasted some good local beer and some some local cuisine. It was amazing.

After all the touristy stuff and a few easy days in the bike, I was ready for my first Belgian style CX race. Scheldecross was on tap for my first race in Antwerp Belgium, about an hour away. The course was the most difficult courses I have ever encountered. Lots of fast technical riding on one side of the course, and the other side was the hardest sand riding/running ever. Most of the guys at the front could ride a reasonable amount of the sand sections, but I struggled with it all day because I am so new to long sand riding. I would often have to run more than my competitors which was killing my legs and hurting SO bad. I beat a fair amount of people and just nearly made the lead lap!!! So it was a successful first Belgian Cross race.

Next day was the Overijse cyclocross race. I guess this race is referred to “the mother of CX races” as its one of the oldest and most challenging courses that they race on. After one day of racing, I figured I would jump right in and do another one of the hardest CX races of my life. The start was totally savage with it starting at the base of a 1-2 minute climb up cobbles and to the highest point of the race. They are really aggressive in the starts here, so you really need to be able to hold your own and not let people push you around. I was able to get a really great start and be in front of about 20 or so people coming into the start finish line the first time. I rode around in a good group of people and moved up throughout the race and felt really good, but when I first looked at how many laps we had remaining and saw 6 laps to go…. It was a little disheartening!

This course was seriously the most challenging course I have ever seen, and this is after already doing the hardest cross race the day before. Every lap you had to sprint straight up this really steep hill and head into the top side of the course, go back down some muddy twisty chuted of death, and then continue traversing the hill until you wanted to vomit. I finished one lap dow and beat a lot of people, including a couple Belgians that came to the US and I was having a hard time beating. So a very successful first full weekend of racing here in Belgium. My body is completely messed up right now, so I will get a massage tonight to help the recovery process.

I really want to thank all of my sponsors for making this trip a reality. VOmax has been such a huge help with allowing me to travel over here and take time off of work. Focus Bikes really hooked me up this year with two matching bikes! SRAM fully outfitted my bike with some sick components. Sock Guy set me up with some great winter racing socks and other really fun items! And of course my team, JAM Fund / NCC was the biggest help with getting me over here and setting me up with everything I would need to make it possible!

This has been the most amazing trip so far, and I am learning and experiencing so much. Looking forward to the racing coming up, including two world cups in the next two weeks!