Lockeren = Damn Fast

120kms,134 riders and a dead flat course. That only means one ting in Belgium......Damn fast racing!!!!
A great warm day of 24 greeted us tardy riders for the 3rd round of Stad Lokeren, I had missed the first 2 as I am a fair weather rider(there I sais it) and prefer not to get wet.
After riding to the race I had a nice 30 km warm up with only a few short Cam detours thrown in (alittle lost)and I was feeling pretty good at the start line.Looking around I noticed former silver medal winning cyclocross pro American Jonathan Page who was looking rather cool and American.
From the gun we were sprawled out into single file as most clung on for dear death just trying to hold the wheel and not get dropped to soon, I on the other hand was feeling rather good and I finally feel comfertable at the high speeds over here and was enjoying the first hour at an average speed of 45.6kph.
With a nice short cornered cobble section(just put in to help the bike industry) I found myself with enough strength to start looking to get into some moves and have a bit of a crack..... though riding at the front to sitting in was another story and if you wanted to ride away from this bunch of lads you would have to be sitting on 55 in the twisty sections and 60 on the flat sections so it was a hard task.

I decided to try anyway and as I was just about near fron the big boys(probaly sensing The Cam was abbout to ride!!) attacked hard at the front and the winning break was formed at around the 75km mark.
As this large group of around 20 moved away it became obvious that there was alittle blocking going on and was fairly obvious that all the Lithuanian riders(even in different teams) were working for eachover and wanted in on some of those Euros.
I wasnt to fussed and the rest of us just rode around the rest of the race at a slow average og around 44kph for the remaining hour.
Sometimes you can smell a mass bunch sprint and the fact that they were paying top 30 was a nice deal breaket to sprint for that crisp 10 euro note!!!With the normal elbows and chopping going on I decided not to risk my pretty butt(butt man!!)and would sit this one out and roll over for an eventual 109th place which reeally didnt show off my good form for the day.

In the end It was a good idea as a mass crash happened over the finishline claiming some skin and ego and giving a few young Lions the chance to fet a ride with the Red Cross.
A good day none the less which saw me rack up 187kms in 5hr15mins not a bad day in the training log.
So that was Lokeren,Erodegem on Monday as I take a break over the weekend.

Till soon



Butt Man