The Lendele Kermesse.

It was a baking hot day in Belgium. Where a field of 70 juniors lined up for a 90k race through the centre of Lendele. This was my 2nd race in my stay here. I had been out in the morning and arrived at the race feeling good.

Having gone to the café to get my race number and then got the bike ready. It was time to go and roll round the bit of the course taking a look at some of the corners and the finish without going to far away from the start so I could still get a good place on the line.

The race started at 3 o’clock exactly and went of really fast right from the off. I had got a good start and was about 15 back going down the hill and into the first corner. I didn’t know what the course was like so I moved up to about 10th place and just sat in on the first lap so I could see what the course was like. Then coming through the finish I launched an attack to try and break established. After 10 mins of attacking a break established of about 6 riders but no one really was prepared to work.

The race really got into the swing of things then. Riders clipping off the front then getting caught. The main group split and came back together. I was trying to be on the right side of all of these splits and breaks, I found myself in some good groups of riders but yet again the willingness to work was not there.

In the end the race came back together going through to receive the bell for the final lap. A group of 3 riders then attacked and got a gap. I thought that the group would catch them back but on realising that that wasn’t going to happen I tried to bridge across the gap on my own which was about 15 seconds at this point. However I died halfway across so I had to make my way back into the bunch and see how I did in the sprint. I was no quite awake when the bunch came past me and I ended up at the back. Not where I wanted to be. So I had to put in a massive effort to get through the bunch in about a mile and a half right the way up to the front. Because of the heat I was starting to cramp a little but as I put some power down even though I had been drinking a litre an hour. When positioned at the front I still couldn’t rest because I would have got swamped so I just had to keep my position for the sprint.

The sprint then opened up but I was a little bit boxed in. I had to force my way out of this position and then kick. I got out but when I kicked I got cramp in my calves but I just managed to hold on to 3rd in the sprint, But 6th overall because those 3 where not caught.