Finally a checkered flag

I raced again yesterday, in Da Haan, near the coast. The whole day started out really bad. First we almost leave without one of our guys, then we get 50 meters down the street and my cassette starts to stick. Upon inspection, the freehub needs to be fixed (American Classics, go figure). I run back to the house to change the wheel out and ask the guys to wait, only to return to an empty street. Luckily I had another guy go back to the house with me so we knew the way to the race.

The entire ride we (there were 4 in total) were trying to chase down our other teammates. We were going hard too, around 40 k and hour in a head wind, and I might add I had a 7 kilo bag on my back to make it just that much harder before a race. We eventually get to Da Haan, and no team is in sight. I sign in, get my number and sit down to attach the frame number and pin my number to my back. As I'm doing this along comes the rest of the team. Little punks took a different route, so we weren't going to catch up no matter how hard we had gone. Little did they know the guy they ditched (me) had the foreign permission letter for the whole team, so without me there would have been no race for them.

Enough of the antics, lets get down to racing. I was able to get a great starting position, right at the front, literally on the line. At the whistle I quickly settled into a top 10 spot and there I would stay through the first lap. On the second lap (each one being 9.8k long) the initial break happened, and guess who was there to go with it.....that's right I made the break. Unfortunately it would be short lived, I took a conflicting line through a corner and locked up my rear wheel destroying my momentum, and even though I chased to get back on I was cooked when I finally caught up. When you're cooked in the break and can't make your pull without a bit of faultering they get rid of you, and that's exactly what they did.

I was able to catch onto the chasing group after the break ditched me, but that group was very small (4 guys) and I was having a hard time recovering from my last efforts in the break, so after I picked a bad line through the decent, I was gapped off that.

I sat up and had to wait to get caught by the peloton, so depressing when you're in the break at the start, but alas I have a lot to learn still. After I was caught I jumped into the front and found my teammates. I finally got a chance to recover, and after about a lap or so I was able to work again. Two teammates made it in the split when it went up the road, and I am proud that I allowed them that chance, I was able to get on the front and sit up to allow the gap to happen. The commisaire allowed us to go another few laps before they had us finish, and with most of our team in that field we had to sit back and watch as two guys were able to continue until the end. Our best placing was a 37th, but out of almost 150, so........

All in all there is still a lot I have to learn. I was finally in the spot to make the move, but I wasn't able to continue the move, or finish it off. That's what I need to learn. I still do too much work in the wind and I still get sucked into working too hard in the break. I'll get it, and it feals good that I finally saw a checkered flag officially ending our race, but I'm not there yet. I'm learning quickly, but there is still a long way to go.