Roundabouts, traffic islands and barriers, roads more like over sized footpaths, a few cross winds, and you have yourself a day of start stop racing in Holland, as the peloton tried to navigate it’s way around all the obstacles without to many incidents.  Though it was inevitable there would be a few casualties.

With the fairly flat 210km parcour the race was flat out for the first hour until just one dutch rider was let go to catch some TV time for him and his team, though it was short lived as the straight after the feed station the peloton started to fire up and the race was on and didn’t let up until the finish.  It ended in a bunch kick with Gerolerstiner’s Robert Forster taking line honors ahead of his team mate who had lead him out.

Though the race had a lot more interesting feelings and sensations for me as it was my first race since completing my first Grand Tour.  I was concerned how I would fair being only 9days after the Giro and not really knowing how well I had recovered.  It didn’t take long for me to find out though, as after about 20km I launched across a small gap to a breakaway and found myself close the gap quicker than I imagined, the heart rate got into the 190’s and recovered almost as quickly.  To be honest I was just glad to see my heart rate that high as I hadn’t seen that since the first week of the Giro.  It wasn’t all that easy though, as at many stages through the race my legs still felt heavy as did my head and the thought of my bed seemed like a good place to be.

So after a dragged out journey home due to accidents on the motorway, overbooked hotels at Brussels airport and canceled trains back to Albi, I made it home to get in some more good recovery and prepare for my next race “Route du Sud” which starts on Thursday.  This will be a real treat for me as it is the only race of the year in this region, so nice little 2hr drive to the first hotel instead of flying across Europe will be a nice change.

Will be in touch with action from on the road soon.

Cheers

Tim