Zaventem Crit

Prime Lap

Michael Charles, our French speaking sprinter, stretches his legs at the front while I lie in waiting...

Off the front trying to make it happen

Sitting pretty

Going on the attack on the cobbles.

Crits in Belgium are relatively rare compared to North America, but in my experience when the Belgians do decide to put on a crit they do a fantastic job of making it memorable. This 66km crit in the town of Zaventem on the outskirts of Brussels was no exception. First of all the course had everything you could ask for in a 2.2 km course including a fast decent, long rolling and sharp corners, a cobbled uphill section, a narrow false flat climb and long stretches on what they call "clinkers" in these parts but are what you would at home call "Gastown Cobbles" referring to the supposed cobbles in the Gastown crit. For the record those paving stones are not even remotely related to the real cobbles you find over here. One the start line it started raining quite heavily making the course fairly treacherous, but after about half an hour the course dried out nicely just in time for a glittering finale.
As for the race it was fast, but I felt like I was caught in an odd position finding sitting the in bunch even when it was really going to be rather easy, but the intensity when trying to get in breaks and go for primes to be just a touch out of my capacity. Speaking of primes there were plenty of them. The citizens of Zaventem apparently have some deep pockets with over 500 Euros having been collected for various crowd primes. They would give primes constantly for first place in the peleton, or second or even the last placed rider. After the race I was told that a few riders actually let themselves get dropped and suffered to get back in the bunch when going for the last man across the line primes which were for 20 Euros each, thats about $26 CAN just to put the brakes on. Eventually these riders last contact with the main group and were dropped, but at least they got payed a fair sum. Unlike me, I earned 6 Euros for my lowly 26th place. I missed the break, and the second break and I can't sprint well enough to finish in the front of the bunch. Its not that I didn't try to get away, I was in several splits as usual, but on more than one occasion the counter attack was the successful move. I got away for one lap on my own, but only one rider came across the gap and he wouldn't roll through. I didn't even get a prime for my efforts.
Thanks to Sammy again for some great pictures. Tomorrow we are going to check out the Tour of Belgium stage. Three of my training partners are in the race and Roesems is sitting top 5 now after his strong ITT today.