Ronde van Drenthe, Holland

Holy Crap! I ACTUALLY, for the first time in the history of Bernard racing in Europe, raced my bike today! Yup, it only took 20 some odd races and half of the 2nd season before I could do it, but I finally managed to do it. I don't know how I managed it either cuz I tell ya, I was totally useless two days before. Yeah it's been pretty annoying for me to be spit out the back of just about every single race I've done out here. I trained really hard this winter, we had great weather for it, and I started the season with probably the best fitness I've ever had at that point in the year. From what I can see, it seems to have just about all gone down the toilet. Yeah great. Actually I don't really want to think about the fact that three months of hard training went to nothing in Europe, well I won't make that mistake next year that's for sure. I think shorter stints here in Europe will probably have to be the way to go because two years in a row this schedule of racing to death and then resting has not worked.

Hey wait this is supposed to be a happy post. Ok so the race. I was less than enthused at the start because I'd been riding so poorly lately. I was hoping just to make it to the feed zone at 130k, it was a 210k race. Well Drenthe is a province in the northern Netherlands and this race has some really really cool terrain. We start in just some standard farm fields, race over a garbage dump hill (Matt Cooke aka Cookie, asked before the race if it stunk. Well it was a garbage dump like 40 years ago so now it's a nice park/hill/thingie) and then make our way towards the forests. Racing through the forest is cool enough, especially since we've had nothing but depressing Belgian farm roads built pre WWII this spring. However, once we entered the forests we started hitting the cobbled roads in the forest! Best part about these cobbled roads was that they weren't the traumatizing jagged boulders of Belgium, but a rather nice breed of smooth stones half the size of normal cobbles that do more massaging that beating. But then again these cobbled sections were twice as long as anything we've done in Belgium so now two days later my knuckles still don't feel quite right. Arthritus here I come!

So anywho before the race I felt like I had no top end, I didn't have the ability to ride REALLY hard. I could ride at a steady pace all day, but once the screws were turned, I was having problems. Two days prior at GP Pino Cerami I was doing just fine till we hit the circuits which had a steep cobbled climb and as soon as we hit the climb I was outta the race... good times. With all this in mind, starting the race today I just wanted to get some quality miles in (I'd begun training between races instead of resting because resting wasn't helping.) Fighting for position didn't seem to be all that bad today either so I just kept real conscious of staying up front as much as I could. I managed to stay in good position through most of the cobbled sections of the race and it didn't seem like we were really going full gas for any great length of time. I did get gaped of once in the cross winds but it was a short section and I was able to get back on. Around 150k into the race there was a lead group of 8 riders up the road and they had a gap of about 1:15. There was an attack out of the main bunch which I followed but the attempt was short lived. Next thing I know I'm attacking and nobody is coming with me! Now I'm solo off the front of the main bunch and nobody is trying to get across to me. You wanna know the first thing going through my head? 'Nuts! What am I doing?!!' I had 60k left to race and I'm off the front solo, hmm not so good Well I had a gap and I was rolling so the only thing left to do is put my head down and start riding. Ohh geez those first few minutes were some unpleasant ones. I hadn't settled into a good rhythm yet so my legs were instantly burning. I kept looking back because I was sure the field was going to pull me back. For a while it looked like some guys were trying to do just that, but after a bit I was out of sight of the main bunch and off on my own. Now when I say on my own I really mean it this time. I don't think race radio announced my solo move cuz my team car was nowhere in sight, when it should have been right behind me. I was suffering a good bit and almost kinda hoping I'd get caught so the pain could end, but that didn't happen. What did happen though was that I had a TV motorcycle following me and every once in awhile they'd get in front of me to get a close up shot. You know what happens when a moto wants a close up? You get to draft off the moto!!!! Ah it was some great relief, I'd be suffering and hitting the wall and then the moto would come up and I could recover for a second or two. It might have taken me about 10k, but I managed to bridge across to the break. There's nothing better than the sight of the follow cars in the distance when you're coming up on them. Well we all started working well together. Usually if a guys comes across to a break guys start sitting on because the recent arrival is usually fresher and stronger than they are. But I'll tell you one thing I was not the freshest guy there. There was this Italian from team LPR who was riding like he'd just stepped on his bike, and that he hadn't been off the front for the last 160K. Hmm I have a sneaky suspicion that he probably couldn't feel his legs that day, just amazing how that seems to happen to some guys sometimes. Well we kept rolling but I was more than shocked when about 20k later... a group of12 guys bridged across to us. Ugh.. boo, lol and sob.12 guys coming across a gap together is much easier than one, and they looked plenty determined when they reached us. I at this point was not feeling like the brightest little fire-fly in the group and instantly did the obligatory sitt'n on and not work'n! You know it! I know when my odds turn against me and as soon as that happened I was not about to just keep rolling through. One of the reasons why i wasn't feeling stooper strong (other than the fact that we'd now ridden about 180k) was that I hadn't gotten a feed in like 30K! I was in desperate need of some fluids and by that I really mean some coke. All that caffeine and sugar do some mighty good things when you're that tired. All this time off the front I had been signalling to the officials that I needed a drink but apparently they weren't letting any cars through from the main bunch to the break, partially because the roads were so small. Any way you slice it, I was out there for a good 30K with no feeds, yeah that sucked.

We had one small circuit to do to get to the finish and that included two more trips up the garbage dump, which was a short but steepish hill. I was ok the first time over but the second time I made a slightly rookie/slightly I'm so tired I can't see or think straight mistake. I was dying for a feed and I went to the back of the now 20+ rider break to get a bottle from our team car that had finally been allowed to come up to us. The car came up when that group of 12 came across. So I finally get a bottle of coke and I'm at the back of the bunch. Next thing I know we make the left turn into the park for the climb and I'm definitely in the worst position possible, all the way at the back. Of course some dumb bastards just in front of me get tangled up some how as soon as we hit the climb and all three f us have to unclip. I didn't have to put my food down but I definitely had to hesitate and stall on a 15+% climb and that was more than enough to gap me off from the group now attacking up the climb.

I tried and tried to get back on but I was so lights out by that point that there was little I could do. The two dumb bastards who caused this whole initial screw up caught back up to me and we all worked together to try and catch the group but it just wasn't happening. Coming off the climb we had 10k to go and although we kept the main group at a steady distance most of the way in, we could never catch them. Up ahead things started coming apart as riders started attacking for the win.

In the end I trudged in, barely functional, in 29th place. Had I caught the group ahead of us I would have been fighting for 5th place because there had been an attack that got away for the top 4 spots. But like I said, I was totally lights out and there was no sprint in me anyways by that point. I found out the pain wasn't over yet though because as soon as I stopped my stomach totally knotted up and I could barely move. It was a good half hour before I felt somewhat normal again. Geez I haven't felt that bad since nationals last year... another death march of a race.

The race link with some cool pics is at:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos.php?id=/photos/2007/apr07/drenthe07/PELOTON1

Well I'd like to go top 20 in at least one race out here, so I guess 29th is a start!

I have one race left here in Belgium, this Wednesday then I'm off to train with my teammate in Ireland for a week before we head over to Germany for a 5 day stage race. Good fun from here on out I figure!

Thanks fer reading

Bernard