Let the Nations Cup BEGIN.

foreshadowing- WE WON. #america

Gent- Wevelgem. 120 km- roads as narrow as bike paths with two times up the Kemmelberg being the highlight.

As is the case with all events, the race began the night before. Dinner was at our USA home base in Sittard, NL before we began the drive to Izegem. No chipotle this time. Our chef Rik carbed us the f*** up with some specialty rice dish. Rik is a legend. He works with Team USA at the home base in Watersley cooking dinner every night as well as stocking the houses with food. Without him we would be lost :-). Soon after we loaded the van and got on the way. Parkhotel Izegem was the lodging for the night. A quite nice hotel in the south of Belgium- just 20 minutes from the start in Ypres. We quickly threw our race bags in our rooms and gathered up for a team meeting. The plan was simple. Race forward, don’t hesitate, and keep Quinn as safe and protected as possible. The boys were ready.

Race day began at 5:45. RISE AND SHINE.

We gathered our small belongings and headed to breakfast. As is the case with most European hotels, the buffet was NO JOKE. Any American hotel that promises a “continental breakfast” is lying to you and should shut its doors. We took in plenty of croissants, eggs, coffees, and even had some pasta to guarantee the extra carbs. A few more coffees for the road to guarantee optimum caffeine levels and we were off to Ypres.

It was not warm.

We did our best to keep the body temps up as we donned our red, white and blue. Robert our soigny/polish ball of love lathered the legs up with embro and PR lotion. Robert is another crucial element of the USA family. He keeps our legs fresh and our stomachs full. He’s also damn good at ping pong. Alright- back to the bike race. We stocked the pockets with all the necessary SiS goodies, took our final pees and headed to team presentation. I couldn’t tell you what the announcer was saying in dutch as we walked on stage but it was probably something along the lines of damn those Americans look good :-)

After team pres it was straight to the start line. The gun went off and we hit the front. Man it felt good to be back.

Our team was strong- really strong. We were present in everything- with all of our guys all over the front. I was eager and spent a lot of time rolling in moves for the first hour. Nothing rolled but anything to take the pressure off our guys in the field. We hit the Kemmelberg the first time with our whole train on the front- safe and sound. A group of around 30 of us split off over it but slowly grew. We attacked more, followed more moves and just had plenty of fun. On the run in to the Kemmelberg the second time I was feeling the efforts from early in the race. Up the cobbles I just didn’t have legs. I knew we had 3 guys in the front group though- and every one of them had the legs to win. Quinn launched from that group with Lewis (team GB) at 15km to go and then went solo with 2km to go. He did it.

Legendary.

Post race consisted of podiums, recovery shakes and waffles. We quickly changed and were on our way. Back home just in time to watch the pros finish.

To conclude. We won a bike race. Winning bike races is fun :)