We arrived in mother City on Thursday afternoon and headed to the Argus EXPO.
It was awesome being able to spend some time at the Momsen stand discussing some of the 2015 gear. Lets just say we have a lot to look forward to :-). After collecting some fresh rubber and bits from Nike we headed to our accommodation just out side Grabouw. Thanks to Paul Rodenbosch and his Parents for having us at there lovely hotel (Houw Hoek).
I finished building my bike.
And headed out for a short spin which turned out to be a terrible idea. Im not entirely sure what happened but the out come wasn’t great. I stumbled in to the accommodation a little worse for wear.
Shaun managed to put me back together that evening. The next morning we went to the pharmacy to get some more aid. Trav and Paul headed out for a few practice laps whilst I went out on the road. The track was the same as Conti champs, so it wasn’t a train smash that I didn’t do a few laps.
I had a false sense of hope that my hand would be ok ,come race day. I was going to give it my best no matter how sore. Race day came,we strapped up my hand pretty well.
I couldn’t t stand and sprint, so my start wasn't t great but I made the front group. The first half of the track was pretty much uphill and my hand wasn’t much of a problem. Going down was another story, its not often I feel out of control on my bike. For the first time it felt like I could really hurt myself, I couldn’t hold the bar. It didn’t matter how much of a death grip I gave the bar, the muscle was too torn and bruised to hold on.
Its never nice having to throw in the towel. Its times like this where your support staff become ever more important. It is easy to fall in a hole and feel sorry for yourself instead of doing everything in your power to fix the problem.
Congrats to Trav and Paul for putting together some great results for the team.
Paul "Rodenbach" :)
ReplyDelete