Interclub Zwevelzele

We raced our first Interclub yesterday. Interclubs are races with prestige, money, and only teams can enter.

We started with 140 riders. We pre-rode the course and rode past the start. We didn't see many riders and thought we might get a good starting position. As we looked around, we saw all the riders lined up for roll-out. They had lined up over 30mins before their start. I started 3/4 back, but was able to move to the front by the end of the first lap. The course was really, really windy. There were crashes everywhere. I was blown off the road a few times, but recovered. Everyone in the race wanted to win. This caused a lot of crashes and bumping. I stayed in the top 25 and only saw a few crashes, but later found out that there were many crashes that covered the entire road. On the 3rd of 8 laps the winning break got away. I wasn't sure if it would stick and I was out of position to get in the break. I waited for the next moves. I had a close call with another rider as a team car passed the pack. Then the next group went and I was too far back when the chase group went. I waited for 2 laps to go and attacked into the head wind. I caught a rider in no mans land and we worked together to bridge across to the chase group. By the end of the bridge I was pedaling squares and had tunnel vision. We caught them at the beginning of the descent. In our races descents are 3%> by with our small gears everyone is spun out. I worked in the group of around 20 riders. In the sprint I finished 6th in the group and 21st overall.

This was the first time I have had to race hard in winds. They are hard, but it helped to think of headwinds as hills. They only had resistance.