Monday, March 24, 2008
Back in Belgie !
Hallo!
I arrived in Belgium a few weeks back to begin my 2008 racing season with my new team De Sprinters Malderin. After packing the car as full as it was possible to do so, me and matt set off in two cars down to Dover to catch the boat before arriving in Belgium to our apartment in a place close by to where we have lived before in a little town called Wiekervorst.
The previous week before moving out I decided to give the Eddie Soens a bash seeing as I wouldn’t be racing in England for a while and I wanted to see how my legs were after getting the winter miles in.
To be honest the race was a big shock to the system, its always hard getting back into racing after the winter training but racing with about 200 keen men is even harder . It was a good race to test the legs and with 6 laps to go of racing I lost the wheel on the back straight and didn’t have the legs to jump back on so I finished early with a good remembrance of how hard racing is, but also looked ahead for my first race out here in Belgium.
We had a busy few days over here at frst, getting our apartment kitted out with bits borrowed and cheaply bought to make it look a bit more like home in here which I can say it now does.
My first race here was at Wieze it was the first race of a brand new women’s series over here which is sponsored by AA drinks. I didn’t realise how big this series was going to be until I saw the start list of 200 riders made up of all the AA drinks team, Flexpoint, lotto, and so on, so I knew it would be a good hard race to get my teeth stuck into.
The weather had been fine, and as per usual it came to race day and it had turned into a full on gale with high winds and rain which is always to be expected in Belgium at this time of year so I cant really complain.
I met the girls from the team and stocked up on some food and drink from the team car then set off to the start line for a bit of a warm up which I didn’t get much of as when I got there everyone was lining up to set off. There was 170+ starters and the race was 90km 9 laps of a 10km circuit, which is just the basic kermesse circuit out here. The roads were wide and in parts quite twisty.
The race began and I made my way to the front, I tried to keep as near of the front as possible, I didn’t want to be in the middle or a the back otherwise I was sure to get caught up in a crash, the girls have a habit of screaming and shouting the first few laps if you get close to them which is quite funny especially when they slam on the breaks round corners and all you can hear behind you is a tumbling of bikes. I managed to stay out of trouble, the first few laps I found quite hard but once I got into it I felt a lot more confident in myself and managed to have a half decent race ending up 14th. There were 3 girls which got away one from each of the three main teams so once they had got away it was going to be hard to get across to them. I sat in for the sprint, I was in 2nd wheel coming into the last corner and the finish line was about 800m down the road , I didn’t have much of a sprint and found that when I tried to kick I just didn’t have it.
Het Volk the week after was a tough day which I would rather not go in to , my legs felt rubbish all race and I just knew from when the flag went down it was going to be a tough day. However I put this race behind me and last week I got back on with the programme and did some good training , some of which included matt taking me behind the car a few times doing between 60-70kmph down some long stretches of road by where we live. This obviously helped as I was feeling so much better in myself by the end of the week and also in the race I did at Hamme yesterday. There was a big field of 100+ riders , I felt strong all race and was in quite a few of the moves, with 4 laps to go 6 girls got away I was boxed in and couldn’t get through so bided my time and attacked with another girl with 2 laps to go and stayed away to take 7th place.
Over the next few weeks there the team go to some of the big Dutch races, some of which I did last year so I have a pretty good Idea of how hard they are, so I look forward to them.
Hope everyone elses season starts off well !
Nikki xxx
I arrived in Belgium a few weeks back to begin my 2008 racing season with my new team De Sprinters Malderin. After packing the car as full as it was possible to do so, me and matt set off in two cars down to Dover to catch the boat before arriving in Belgium to our apartment in a place close by to where we have lived before in a little town called Wiekervorst.
The previous week before moving out I decided to give the Eddie Soens a bash seeing as I wouldn’t be racing in England for a while and I wanted to see how my legs were after getting the winter miles in.
To be honest the race was a big shock to the system, its always hard getting back into racing after the winter training but racing with about 200 keen men is even harder . It was a good race to test the legs and with 6 laps to go of racing I lost the wheel on the back straight and didn’t have the legs to jump back on so I finished early with a good remembrance of how hard racing is, but also looked ahead for my first race out here in Belgium.
We had a busy few days over here at frst, getting our apartment kitted out with bits borrowed and cheaply bought to make it look a bit more like home in here which I can say it now does.
My first race here was at Wieze it was the first race of a brand new women’s series over here which is sponsored by AA drinks. I didn’t realise how big this series was going to be until I saw the start list of 200 riders made up of all the AA drinks team, Flexpoint, lotto, and so on, so I knew it would be a good hard race to get my teeth stuck into.
The weather had been fine, and as per usual it came to race day and it had turned into a full on gale with high winds and rain which is always to be expected in Belgium at this time of year so I cant really complain.
I met the girls from the team and stocked up on some food and drink from the team car then set off to the start line for a bit of a warm up which I didn’t get much of as when I got there everyone was lining up to set off. There was 170+ starters and the race was 90km 9 laps of a 10km circuit, which is just the basic kermesse circuit out here. The roads were wide and in parts quite twisty.
The race began and I made my way to the front, I tried to keep as near of the front as possible, I didn’t want to be in the middle or a the back otherwise I was sure to get caught up in a crash, the girls have a habit of screaming and shouting the first few laps if you get close to them which is quite funny especially when they slam on the breaks round corners and all you can hear behind you is a tumbling of bikes. I managed to stay out of trouble, the first few laps I found quite hard but once I got into it I felt a lot more confident in myself and managed to have a half decent race ending up 14th. There were 3 girls which got away one from each of the three main teams so once they had got away it was going to be hard to get across to them. I sat in for the sprint, I was in 2nd wheel coming into the last corner and the finish line was about 800m down the road , I didn’t have much of a sprint and found that when I tried to kick I just didn’t have it.
Het Volk the week after was a tough day which I would rather not go in to , my legs felt rubbish all race and I just knew from when the flag went down it was going to be a tough day. However I put this race behind me and last week I got back on with the programme and did some good training , some of which included matt taking me behind the car a few times doing between 60-70kmph down some long stretches of road by where we live. This obviously helped as I was feeling so much better in myself by the end of the week and also in the race I did at Hamme yesterday. There was a big field of 100+ riders , I felt strong all race and was in quite a few of the moves, with 4 laps to go 6 girls got away I was boxed in and couldn’t get through so bided my time and attacked with another girl with 2 laps to go and stayed away to take 7th place.
Over the next few weeks there the team go to some of the big Dutch races, some of which I did last year so I have a pretty good Idea of how hard they are, so I look forward to them.
Hope everyone elses season starts off well !
Nikki xxx
# posted by Nikki @ Monday, March 24, 2008 
