It was cold in Crawley but the coffee was warm. (credits: @breakawaydigital)
As the title already shows, a lot has happened this weekend…
The title is in chronological order and that will also be the way this story is built up.
First responding.
If it wasn’t for my mechanic Jelle and me things could have ended up a lot worse for a Belgian person on a highway towards the Belgian coast.We left my home on friday evening because I booked us a spot in the Eurotunnel on Saturday morning. Around 22:30 we see some car lights blinking and flashing in front of us and Jelle says to me ”something happened over there”, as we come closer to the lights more and more car parts are laying on the highway and Jelle has to drive the camper around them. As we come close I see in the headlights of the camper that there is a body laying next to the car on the emergency lane and it isn’t moving.
Without hesitating we pull aside wit the camper and I call 112 as we run towards this car, there wasn’t much left of it. All airbags where out and there was a man laying next to it but wasn’t moving, Jelle found his heartbeat and I was checking the car for other passengers because there was a children seat in the back. As I got in touch with the emergency number and tell them our location the person starts panicking and Jelle and I have to bring him and ourselves in to safety. We were still standing on the emergency lane of the highway as this is all happening and cars and trucks are passing by at high speed. We finally get the person to the other side of the guardrail, around 15 minutes later the first fireman show up with a truck quickly followed by the first ambulance. From there the professionals took over and we stayed for a bit and left when we got the green light from the police to leave.
That was only a few hours in to another racing weekend.
Sleeping at a military base.
We where just talking about finding a place to sleep when we saw the accident so when we left the spot the next thing was to find a place to sleep. It was already around 12 o’clock at night so bedtime had passed already. We saw the exit to Koksijde and since we had been there a few times to race Jelle might knew a good spot to stay for the night. We pass the military base and he tells me, there is a nice little parking to stay tonight. Since it was literally next to the building with the soldiers who where on guard it told him that they will tell us to leave straightaway. But Jelle was like, ”I got a plan”, he rides up to the base and steps out of the camper. Jelle has been in the Dutch Air-force for around 10-years and still wears high air force jacket with pride. The jacket was hanging in the camper so he puts in on and walk straight in to the building with the guards. The recognize the jacket, and when he asks ”hello colleagues, we’ve been here a few times to race but we are now on our way to England to race. Would it be a problem if we stay here for the night?” The soldiers look at each other, there is a little doubt, but when the one with the highest rank nods at the other one he tells Jelle that it is all fine.
So that night we slept at a guarded parking spot at the airbase in Koksijde.
The next morning we drove the camper on a train and that train drove us through the Eurotunnel and dropped us in the UK.
My season goal ruined.
From Folkstone we drove straight over to the course to do the first inspections over there.
My big goal of the season was to aim for the highest possible in the National Series Trophy. After I already missed a good result in the first round in Derby I couldn’t afford any mistakes anymore in the other five races of the six rounds. The best five rounds count for the overall where I was on the second place after three races. The training had been worked around these races and I invested a lot of time and effort in getting ready at the right moments. From training blocks in Switzerland to long days of suffering in the cold and wet Ardennes’, but it wasn’t only me who put a lot of effort in these races here. Also the guys from Hunt and specially Ollie the Wizard as he took on the role of team manager for the British campaign.
Ollie in a state of: ”don’t worry I got this bro”. (credits: @breakawaydigital)
Ready for an epic day we went over with two spare bikes and two extra sets of wheels to the pit area. (credits: @breakawaydigital)
With cyclocross clearly being alive in the South of Britain there where again a huge number of riders in the race. The start was a long one and we hit the mud straight in the first wide 180 degrees corner. Unfortunately one of the riders close to me goes down and takes me with him, another rider fall over my and lands with his shoe in my front wheel and gets stuck over there. So straight after the first corner I am on the last place (around place 78). I take a new bike in the pit straight away and I knew that it would be all or nothing to try and save my big goal this year.
Well, that all didn’t work out… I came back to a 17th place and I knew that my ambitions for the series could be moved to a new season.
The mud had clearly left its traces already after the first corner… (credits: @breakawaydigital)
(credits: @breakawaydigital)
Unfortunately for most of us in professional sports there is more disappointment to be dealt with then glory to enjoy. I’ve learned over the over the years how to deal with it and mainly how to react. I went straight from the finish to the roller, did a 20min cooling down and went to the showers as nothing had ever happened. From experiences in the past I know that it is better for me to don’t say anything at these moments, so we packed the camper and thanked everybody for coming over and helping out. ”See you guys in two weeks in Pembrey” where the last words before we all went our separate ways.
Straight to the rollers. (credits: @breakawaydigital)
Together with Jelle we drove back to the Folkstone where we got on a train with the camper back to Calais. Jelle dropped me off at home on Monday as he continued his journey back home to the North.
On Monday the selection for the Worldcup in Tabor also was made public and unfortunately I won’t be racing there. I am currently just outside the top 50 (55 I thought) so next weekend I will only be racing in the EKZ crosstour in Hittnau.
But to finish all this negativity with a positive vibe:
Passing an exam.
I flew in to Scotland two weeks ago on the Saterday before the race because there was an exam waiting for me at the University on Friday. No better way to prepare for a weekend of racing is with a geography exam about the way certain landscapes where formed during the last ice ages, about earth rotations and ice age cycles, about meteorology (ask Joris Nieuwenhuis and Sieben Wouters, I tried to explain them all the weather stuff) and some other stuff I can’t quickly recall at the moment. But the main thing is: I knew it all two weeks ago at the ”moment suprême” and I passed the exam. Again one step closer to graduating!
All the training hours aren’t gone in one weekend so I’ll keep working hard because the season still has a lot of races left for me!
Next stop: EKZ crosstour Hittnau and then I go back to the UK the get revenge in Pembrey.
Greetings Gosse