Clinton Avery Cyclist

I am back again…. Isn’t it funny how over the New Zealand summer you don’t hear a peep from me, and now with having frequent races my email updates are filling up your inbox’s? Well not quite but I know a few of you were wondering where I had disappeared too and what I was doing for a while.

Well for those that are still wondering, I didn’t do a lot and unfortunately now I am feeling it. I have just been very fortunate that the bad days trying to get my form back haven’t come on the race days. Until I can get back up to full form I hope they don’t come on race days. I am getting there though and hopefully will be back up to full form for my target race in a month…. Paris - Roubaix.

Affligem is a small town just north of Brussels which is where the race started and finished. It was supposed to be 152km but I only clocked 146km so I don’t know where those other Km’s came from. It was still a fairly big race just a little on the shorter side; normally races like this one are around the 180km mark. Being shorter however did not make it any easier for me. I think if it was 180km I wouldn’t have got to the finish. Why? Because three of us in the team (Jens, Yannik and myself) were told one of us needs to be in the early break in case it stays away to the finish, but 1 of us also needs to be in any other break away.

Well unlike normal there was no early break so we were left fighting to be in breaks all day which used a lot of energy. There were a few points in the race where it looked like the break would stick but it kept coming back. There were also times where it looked like nothing was going to stay away and it was going to be a bunch sprint. There were some key points in the race… famous climbs like “de Mur” and “Bosberg” which are steep and cobbled. They both did damage to the peleton but it wasn’t hard enough after them so it all kept coming back together. It all would have been different if there was some wind but there wasn’t any. Not very Belgie like!

Coming into the 4 finish laps, it was one of those times that looked like the finish was going to be a bunch sprint. Not long after that the team cooked it! Not all because of misjudgement, but more because 2 guys from the team were out of the race, 3 of us were starting to feel the hurt from all the attacks and the last guy, Maxim was just doing what he could. The fact still remained though that we missed the only break that stayed away.

With two 14km laps to go, one of our very unhappy directors was standing at the top of the climb yelling at us to get to the front and chase the break away down. Jens is a very good sprinter so bunch sprint would have a higher chance at a result then having 7 guys up the road and no one chasing. I made my way to the front getting there at the start of the last lap. I wasted no time waiting for the others and began using what legs I had left to chase. We got to the bottom of the climb a couple of km’s later and still no others from the team had joined me. However our director was not happy and I didn’t really want to end up on his bad side so I kept my head down. Over the top when I looked back to see what was happening in the peleton I saw I had about 8 seconds gap with 2 others. I thought to myself stuff it and drove even harder. Next thing we had 15 seconds. As I rode past our director I saw an excited, “this better work” look on his face. He yelled at me the break was 20 seconds up the road. We were working well as the three of us and we got closer and closer to the leaders. Then with 3km to go the other 2 stopped working. Time to go alone I thought or I wont get there, so I attacked them.

1km to go I was absolutely smashing myself but I had 5 second to close. They had by now seen me coming and with the finish approaching they began attacking each other but in doing so the pace was kept high. With 150m to go I had 3m left to close but the sprint had begun. I started sprinting not for a place but just to close that last 3m. In the sprint I managed to close it but unfortunately it wasn’t far enough to come over top of them.

I finished in 8th place and boy was I pleased for it to be finished. Now I think about it and realise that if the race was 1 km longer it would have been a totally different story. I would have closed the gap, been able to recover and then sprinted. But it wasn’t and I finished 8th. I was happy, team was over the moon, so hopefully in the race this Friday my role will be changed to leader apposed to early break. Will see what happens.

That’s all from me for now.

Clinton