Team Snow Valley enjoys Belgium racing

My guests have gone back to the United States. I believe they enjoyed their trip and accomplished most of there goals. I had an enjoyable time showing them around and helping them out. This past month has been moving incredibly fast, I only have two weeks left before I am home. I am looking forward to arriving home and seeing everyone but I know I will miss Europe. Someday I will find my way back to but at this point I am not sure when.
While my guests were here we mostly did kermesse racing. My team from Antwerp was hoping to be racing in France but they are also having a disappointing year of bad results and may not have gotten the invites.
The last kermesse I did with Scott was in Merelbeke. The race started aggressively with everyone marking Scott, after two weeks they had found out how strong he is. Unfortunately 1/3 of the way into the race Scott’s frame cracked on the down tube at the cable bosses, causing him to abandon the race. Also during this race I felt a small hint of my old form and raced aggressively but since I seem to be missing acceleration I was not able to drop the people marking me. At the finish of the race I was pleased with my performance but the back of my right arm felt like it was being stung by bees, I think it was a nerves and muscles that are rebuilding because of my broken collarbone. I still do not trust my right arm to do what I want because of the sharp pains that come out of nowhere.
The other races that my guests and I did were not so exciting for me. I would try to play an aggressive role early and when I would see the strong break go up the road I would tell Scott and he would attack with me on his wheel and I would let a gap so he was able to cross alone and then ride away with the stronger riders. Since I have been here all season riders tend to mark me because they know sometimes I ride strong. Since they didn’t know Scott yet they wouldn’t follow him so closely. Scott rode well while he was here with his worse place being an 12th and best being a 4th. I think the best and most successful way to come to race in Europe is a quick planned trip where you are in shape and focused.
Finding junior races for Adam was interesting. At first I was not sure what he would be able to do but I talked to my Antwerp teammates and found out that he could only race junior races. Luckily the first junior race I found was near Gent. At race sign in we quickly found out that there was more to a junior racing than elite. In Belgium juniors are only aloud to race twice a week; to enter you must have a calendar card that gets stamped at each race. Luckily the officials knew me from the elite races and they found away for Adam to enter since he was only staying of 10 days. Please check out my friend’s journal entries to see what Adam thought of European racing