How to pee in Belgium
The forecast was pretty dire for last Sunday’s Ghentwevelgem. Six hours and 260km in the rain was not going to be pleasant. I like to stay as positive as possible in situations like this. Despite it being one of the biggest races on the calendar, with these sorts of conditions, many guys in the peloton don’t want to be there. If you can stay as motivated as possible, that’s already a big advantage. I’d like to think my winter’s training around the Peak District was perfect preparation – Swiss hill in Alderley edge is near enough in difficulty to the Kemmelberg, maybe even harder.
In the end I didn’t actually get cold; I was completely soaked through and probably aged five years by the finish but I nailed the clothing side of things. It’s always fun talking with each other on the bus about what to wear, we’re very lucky as pros to have plenty of options but it can be tricky to get the right combination. I started with plenty of heat rub (maybe too much) on the legs and chest and then planned to gradually get rid of each layer as the race progressed.
Layer one with bars and rice cakes for the beginning, layer two with gels as things got harder and then caffeine gels in my skinsuit pockets for the last couple of hours. I never got down to the final layer – a career first – finishing the race in a Castelli Gabba, knee-warmers and long-fingered gloves.
I also had another career first going for a toilet break without stopping, after making sure I was at the back of the bunch. It definitely helped maintain the warmth in the relatively easy first 100km. I wonder who else would own up to this?
Our team had prepared bottles of warm tea in most of the feed zones and I must have had six of those. Definitely an advantage. It was a shame to stay warm and have good legs on a day like that only to get spat out of the first group (behind Wout van Aert and Cristophe Laporte) with 15km to go on a small crosswind-battered section. I should have been further forward and was thinking about the sprint finish, gutted. Hey ho – that’s bike racing, folks.