sorry for the long delay- on friday, we flew back up to holland since we had one more holland race on saturday before fleche... i will do the race report, but the short short is that it was a good race. the lipton team was racing there too, so we had a BIG american squad. i had a lot of fun having more friendly faces in the peloton and it came down to a sprint finish. i finished 6th in yet another aggressive bunch sprint. i am getting better at it, but i still have a lot to learn. marianne vos had a VERY impressive race and won... details in the report.
oh, i was going to use capitol letters in this blog for mark... MWS loves to give me a hard time, so, I will oblige him in my proper use of the larger variety of letters... This will, of course, slow me down since I have an added keystroke. Mark? See, I CAN do it.
Anyway- after the race, which was late (the race stared at 2:30, ended at 6, then back to the hotel, dinner, sleep), I did not have much energy for race reports and blogs. So that is why I have been absent. But, now I am back.
We traveled on Sunday down to Maastrich where we will be staying through Fleche. Then on Wed after the race, we will fly back to our castle in Lucca. A lot of traveling, but I am feeling really good.
So, we are down in Maastrich (spelling) where we got to watch the end of the men’s Amstel Gold race. We had a good day yesterday- doing a super easy recover ride and heading over to watch their race. We got to the 1k marker and the streets were barricaded off with spectators mobbing the sidewalks. We decided that the best course of action was to ride up the course amid the cheers of the fans for the men’s race. That led us to a great spot right at the 800m to go mack at the base of the climb. It was a lot of fun to watch the riders, cars, motorcycles, and helicopters... the races are just such big events. In the end, Schuemaker from Gerolsteiner won with an impressive gap on the rest of the break. Hometown hero Michael Boogerd finished 5th, but you would never that he did not win with how much the announcer was jabbering about him in Dutch.
When we got back to the hotel (we are staying at the same hotel as Rabobank and T-Mobile men), we were in time to watch the enormous Rabo bus pull up to a small flock of little boys, excitedly waiting for their race heros. It was cute.
That night, we had dinner at a buffet in the hotel with all those guys. It is funny to see just how small they are. I don’t think that one of them was taller than me and all probably weigh 20 lbs less. They are tiny. I figured I could probably out-eat all of them! Especially with the dessert bar! This is a 5-star hotel and the food is unreal! Jim knows everyone, so we always get to stay in really really nice places where they hook Jim up. This is the nicest hotel so far. I can’t wait for the breakfast bar this morning- I hear that they have crepes that they make for us...
Later on today, we will pre-ride the Fleche course and that will be exciting. It is supposed to be REALY hard, but beautiful. I am VERY tired of flat flat flat riding, so hills will be a welcome, albeit it painful, change. The terrain down here is very different from northern Holland were we have been. Everything is rolling. Still lush and beautiful, but with a little topography to keep things interesting. I will be taking a lot of pictures today, I hope... Frank promised that it was pretty and I would like the course... so, I will busting out the camera.
Race report coming... check back soon!
Oh, and I will post a movie of Amstel on my movie page. But that will be a while. Bye!
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