Tour de Waard

From the start I was able to stay near the front of the field without difficulty, and after a couple of laps I felt confident enough to jump with some of the breakaways and keep the pace high. Together with team mate Jeroen, we were working well together to make sure we kept close to the front and in most of the many breakaway groups got at least one of us in it. About halfway through the race, Bart van Haaren attacked alone and I was doing some pulls on the front in the peloton behind to keep him close. After one of the corners I saw I had a gap to the rider behind me, and after the next corner I saw the gap had become bigger. That's when I decided to give it all I have to bridge the gap alone. I just managed to do that, and Mike Terpstra did the same thing. Only he had a lot more left when he got there, and decided to do another big pull at the front of this group, which was just too much for me and I had to let the other 2 riders go. This is the result of not having done enough races this year and not any races in the past month, which is unfortunate because those 2 riders managed to stay away from the peloton and took 1st and 2nd place. I dropped back to the peloton, and later got some problems with my bike which made me unable to stay near the front of the peloton to jump with a chasing group or sprint for the placings in the first part of the peloton. In the end I finished 40th, which is ok, but a lot more would have been possible. Yet I'm happy with the way I could get involved with the racing, although I couldn't really make an impact yet. This gives me a lot of confidence for the upcoming races and the last part of the road season. I hope I can do even better with some more races under my belt.

Geplaatst door Tom Gakes