Heres the following update that I have been to tired to put up.
Lucky I kept the race book so I can remember where we went.
It's a hard life!! but seriously we went so many places it's hard to remember them all.
Stage 3, Knokke-Heist - Temse, 190km.
Mostly flat stage but with a twist of 3 or 4 cobble sections thrown in there.
I won't go into too much detail as it was a pretty uneventful stage. I rode good position, carried water bottles, went fast (surprisingly) on the cobbles and finished strong in the peloton. The thing that hurt the most that day was finishing, straight into the cars for a 2.5hr drive down the country to Liege for the 4th stage.
We didn't get to the hotel and massaged/dinner until late, and we had an early start.
Stage 4, Fleron to Fleron, Wow, what a day.
Just to give you an insight, 190km, 12 catagorized climbs, plus the rest that wern't but should have been! Not one flat part to the day.
The climbs.
23.1km Cote d'Oneux, 2800m @ 6.4%
49.7km L'Ancienne Barriere, 4800m @ 4.7%
67.6km Cote de Spineux, 3100m @ 6.3%
76.2km Stockeu, 2300m @ 9.9%
79km Haute Levee, 3600m @ 5.6%
97.3km Cote de la Gleize, 2800m @ 4.6%
101.9km Cote de la Vecquee, 6200m @ 5.3%
122.9km Cote de la Redoute, 1700m @ 9.9%
129.6km Thier du Hornay, 1100m @ 6.3%
146.5km Cote du Foret, 2800m @ 5.5%
169.9km Cote du Foret, 2800m @ 5.5%
Then there were the rest, and all of this in 29Degree heat!
All made for a very very hard day, 9 drink bottles and still lost 3kg.
Also lost my legs!
Luckily they got found before the time trial the next day!
5.5hours in the saddle. Carried water bottles for first 100km then was in grupetto for the rest of the afternoon, lucky I found some aussie counterparts to talk to. Could have been pretty boring otherwise. I went through a set of legs, set of brake pads, a bottom bracket and a lot of water. All in a days work.
Lost 25minutes, but time didn't mean a thing, job was done and I made it to the finish in one piece.
Stage 5, Herzele, 16.8km Time Trial.
Last day, full gas, what more could you want.
Pre rode the course, it was very good, long straights, fast decents, not so many corners to accelerate out of.
I left the start house at 1.36pm, rode as hard as I could and felt strong.
Averaged 45km/h, still lost 2 min to the winner. Just goes to show how fast those guys can go. Winner averaged 48km/h. I ended the stage in 73rd place.
So all in all, it was a very good week. I tired to get into some moves, didn't happen. I went in with the goal of just finishing and doing my job. I did that so pretty happy with how it all went.
I have 9 days until I start another tour. This time the Tour de L'oise in France, from the 11th - 14th June. It's a 2.2 tour so I expect it to be the same level as Bretagne, but I have come off this last tour flying so will be looking to build on that in the next week.
I will race on Sunday too, 2km away from here. All the Belgian family coming out to watch. Hope to do something for them!
Until then,
Ryan
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