Fleche Ardennias

Fleche Ardennais, the 3rd round of the Lotto Top Competition where I was making my debut. The reason I am only making my debut now after 18months is that it's a competition for the belgian riders, and being kiwi means I'm not eligible for points towards the overall ranking. Going into the race we had fabio in 4th place in the classement and 3rd on the teams classement.

It's quite a hilly race and suits me pretty well. I left home on Sunday morning with the sun shining. How it can change in 2 hours. When Romain and I arrived in Herve for the start it was pissing with rain, wasn't too bad, that was until we started raining. My director said to me, this is a good race for you Ryan, don't do anything silly and wait for the selection. 3km into the race, 200 riders, worst weather I have ever been in, (yes worse than stage 4 of southland!), I was already riding off the front doing the something silly I wasn't meant to be doing, but if thats what I had to do to get warm then thats what I was going to do. It wasn't all bad though, as long as I was up the road, Fabio and the boys were safe in the bunch and when the natural selection was made I was already up the road ready to ride for Fabio.

There was 4 of us in the break, Myself, the french junior world champion from last year, 1 rider from beveren 2000 and a pom from scott cycling team. (actually funny cause later found out it was the pom who lives with the kiwi track team over here).

We worked well together for 80-90km, then the selection came across and just as I thought Fabio was there. So I rode as hard as I could for Fabio as I knew he was strong and we put time into the chasers. We hit the next climb and I was frozen, couldn't feel a thing, job was done, I wasn't going to ride the finishing circuits for the sake of finishing. I got to the bus and straight into the warm showers, Romain suffered a crash, knew it would be dodgy in a 200 man bunch in that weather. Safer off the front :)

Actually only 20 riders did the whole course. Fabio was our only finisher, but finished strong, 3rd place! Moved into 3rd on classement, but we dropped to 5th on teams. Seeking revenge after the most horrible day. I was dissapointed not to finish but my director was happy with me, and looking back now, I can see I did a good job for Fabio and was happy just to get to where I did.

I have good legs and looking forward to Tuesday and some better weather.

Ryan.