Just a quick update on how everything is going..

We leave Belgium on this Saturday the 17th and head for Copenhagen. It's been going pretty good these last few weeks and made even better yesterday when the time trial bike finally turned up. Now to ride it everyday until race day to get the position sorted. Myself and James Oram are going off to the famous Zolder racing circuit tonight to do some efforts on the smooth super quick track. It is open to the public to ride on from 6pm onwards and allows the chance to ride on a smooth wide fast road instead of the bumpy narrow bike paths which we have to ride on normally... so perfect for doing efforts.

Getting pretty excited to head up to Denmark. Really looking forward to the racing and it will be good to catch up with my cousins who live out of Copenhagen.

Will update again when we reach Copenhagen..

Fraser

Weekend of Racing

Just a quick update from the from the weekend...

Kermesse in Budingem

On Saturday we had a 94km Kermesse in Herenthout which is about 25km from our base in Blauberg. It was a scorcher of a day with my srm saying it was 34 degrees on the start line! With quite a big field of 100+ riders and with 13 laps of a 6.8km circuit it was going to be a hard and fast race.. So we got under way and by the second or third lap myself, Hayden , James and Dion made it into a small break of 8 riders that managed to gap the peloton in a cross wind section on the back of the course. We worked well together an established a lead of up to 1 minute half way through the race. With 8 laps to go Hayden attacked followed by another Belgium rider. Those two broke clear of our small break and in the next few laps I tried to bridge with a Dutch rider who sat on me for 3 laps so that was quite annoying... It managed to come back together  but with hayden and another rider up the road still we were racing for 3^rd. After being caught by the main peloton I kept rolling through hard to get the training benefit from the race so wasn’t too worried about racing for third.. Ended up finishing in the bunch about 11^th with Hayden taking it out and James and Dion coming in 4^thand 6^th

Hayden winning in Herenthout

The next Day we Headed to Budingem for a 13lap 88km Kermesse. Legs were feeling really average and after the first few laps they slowly started to wake up. It was a pretty cool circuit with a 1km climb that slowly kicked up to a sharp left hander and a fast series of corners down to the finish line. James and Hayden had set off up the road mid way through the race and a small chase group of 5 including Dion and myself joined them with just 1 and a half laps to go..

Chase group about to catch Break

 There were a few attacks going into the last few kilometres and a lot of cat and mouse. After two Belgies attacked with about 1km to go i found myself in between them and the rest of the breakaway. I hit it across to the two riders then went straight passed them heading into the last corner before the finish. I went into it a bit hot and clipped my pedal on the ground but managed to keep it up take out the race!

The Win!

Now into another hard weeks training then two interclub races on Saturday the 10th and Sunday the 11th should be hard and will be our first real test to see how the form is coming along... A big thanks to Team Zannata who are helping Hayden and myself out with getting race starts.

Will update how it goes!

Cheers

Fraser

Found a Fan... great success!

Belgium

Hi Guys

Jut an update on how things are going over here.. I am currently based in Blauberg Belgium at the Bike NZ house training and racing up to 3 times a week. I won another race the other day so the road form is coming back and starting to feel road strong again.. The training around here is pretty boring and I needed a break from the house so went and stayed a few nights with my friends Rauraidh and Sean who live in Zweveregem which is a 2hr train ride away on the other side of Belgium. I wanted to do a kermesse that was in their region so decided to stay a few night and do some training up there also.

The Kermesse was on Tuesday and was 23 laps of a fast 5.5km circuit. It was good having nobody there to look after me or give me any bottles during the race so I had to rough it for once which is always a nice change from getting things done for you all the time. Anyway the race went well I stayed at the front the whole race and attacked a lot then came 3^rd in the sprint finish which I was quite happy with.

That night we met up with some other kiwis and went bowling in Kortrijk. It was a nice change from staying at home on Facebook then going to bed.

The next day I met up with my partner in crime Alex Frame and went out on a mini tour of Flanders. He took me up the famous Koppenberg which has a length of 600m, an average gradient of 11.6% and a max gradient of 22%!

The Koppenberg

 The the Muur van Geraardsbergen which has a length of 475 meters, average gradient of 9.3%, max gradient of 19.8%. We had lunch at the top of it and watched young Belgium hopefuls tackle the steep cobbled ascent. It was a good hard day on the bike in some Belgium sunshine for a change...

Muur van Geraardsbergen Tour of Flanders 2008

I caught the train home the next day and now I am back in Blauberg training hard for the Junior Road Worlds which start for me on the 20^th with the time trial, and 24^th with the road race.

Thanks for reading will update soon..

Fraser