Tim ReinhartDiary of a U23 Rider
in Europe
We raced on Saturday the 30th in Harelbeke. Its a category 1.5, which means
the race has UCI points, and people under 25 can race. We had our normal
team in the race, which included myself, Jon Retseck, John Huygueland,
Patrick McCarty, Walker Ferguson, Mark Fitzgerald, Sterling Magnell, and
Aaron Olson. Aaron was on loan for the day from his pro team IteamNova. The
race started without any problems, and the weather continued to cooperate.
It was a sunny 16 degrees Celsius, which isn't bad for Belgium in late March.
At about the 10 kilometer mark in the race Walker crashed pretty hard. But
being a cyclist he got up and tried to get back into the field. Just when he
was about to get back on he got pushed into the gutter by a rider infront of
him, and caught the lip of the road, and once again crashed. He's ok, just
his pride was a little hurt, and the fact that when he crashed he ripped his
shorts so his private area was showing. He said when he was riding all the
old people on the course were gasping. Moving along now without Walker, we
came up on 3 sections of cobble stones. These are very important in the race
because if your not in the front then you can soon find yourself being stuck
behind the crashes, and all the slow riders. The whole team made it through
these without any problems. Then it was my turn to crash. We were making
our way around a narrow road when I thought that I should move up. I figured
a cobbled section was coming up soon, so I started moving up on the left
side. Right as I did this the field slowed down drastically because they
were entering a narrow cobbled street. I had to shoot off the road into some
mud, which caused my front wheel to get stuck, and so over the handlebars I
went. Again I was lucky, and I landed in the mud, so really nothing hurt me,
but I couldn't help but laugh at myself. I quickly caught back onto the
group with no trouble. It must have been my luck day because no sooner then
10 kilometers after my crash my bike just stopped working. I got out of my
saddle, and my gears just slipped and got stuck, and this caused my rear
derailer to break some of my spokes in my back wheel. I had to coast to the
feed zone, and rest of the day was spent in the car. The team however went
on to do really well. Patrick got into a break of 10, and was the strongest
on the climbs all day. Noel said that he was dropping everyone on the
climbs, but they all caught him again. He ended up getting 10th which is
still very good. And that was my experience at the race. I would have liked
to have finished but thats bike racing.
copyright © 2002 by Everette Carr. All rights reserved.
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