Well, let’s start this report with an excuse for not having written any for a while. The reason is two:
1. The last two races haven’t exactly gone my way and I just haven’t felt like sharing that with the world.
2. I work at a bike shop (Bike Parts, Dendermonde) and it’s been spring/summer making us pull 10-12 hour shifts 6 days a week. I’ve in other words been working, sleeping, training, fixing my bike and building on our new race truck for the last months.
But, this week it was different finally (and I have this Monday morning off).
I can just say briefly about the race in Bilstain a few weeks back that marked the beginning of the Belgian Championship.
It was NOT a success to say the least sending me home with 0 points and a bit broken confidence. In Bilstain there were an off road part that was aprox 400m long with a totally crazy jump. I never got the hang of it and I guess most didn’t. Even the guys I spoke to with a quite solid MX background had problems with it as it was not well made. A LOT of crashes there. And for the rest it was just a bit too much offroad for me. Anyway I got to 15’th in the semifinal after a crash on the first lap making me finish the first lap dead last, 36’th. That made me start both finals on 30’th spot which in it self makes for a rough ride. A major crash in the jump made me retire in the first final and the second final I decided to take all the risks in the first lap and then play it reasonably safe. I went from 30 to 19 that first lap but got hit from behind in a braking sending me to the ground and the bike stalled. Finished 25 or something. But enough of that.
What I came home knowing was that I had lost 5-7 seconds on the long dirt part to the really fast riders but more or less nothing on the tarmac.
This was a bit discomforting as I’ve been riding so much cross the last months, but I guess it’s difficult to make up for the fact that a lot of the guys have been put on mx bikes by their fathers when they where 6 years old and I just my entry into that part of bike riding for real just recently. So I got home, parked the bike and did nothing for a few days and then made the decision to start riding more and tougher MX. Said and done. The last weeks I’ve been riding 2-3 times a week on a quite rough little track with a nasty table top and I’ve pulled shifts until I wanted to puke and then a little more. After a while I got the 15 meter tabletop to work quite well and the rest also a bit better and my arms have grown a bit stronger as well I guess. Just one thing. I actually broke my own rule of no bike training within 5 days of a race last week eager as I where to improve my mx-skills. Wednesday I went back out to ride a last time before this weekends races in Holland. It went quite well and my stamina had improved notecably. But I got a bit too cocky. At a few times I overtook the taple top lnding flat after it from 3-4 meters up. That hurts but it’s not really bad. After a while I noticed a bump 4 meters after the end of the big jump and started to think about really overtake it to land on the downslope of that one instead. Said and done. Daniel prepaired to make a +/- 20m jump with a landing zone that had to be correct to the meter. It didn’t go like that. As I sailed through the air I thought briefly that this is really gonna hurt and my mobile phone is in my van 100 meters away. Who is gonna call the ambulance?
BAM!!!
I landed 1 meter too short on the upslope of the bump with 17â€Â
1. The last two races haven’t exactly gone my way and I just haven’t felt like sharing that with the world.
2. I work at a bike shop (Bike Parts, Dendermonde) and it’s been spring/summer making us pull 10-12 hour shifts 6 days a week. I’ve in other words been working, sleeping, training, fixing my bike and building on our new race truck for the last months.
But, this week it was different finally (and I have this Monday morning off).
I can just say briefly about the race in Bilstain a few weeks back that marked the beginning of the Belgian Championship.
It was NOT a success to say the least sending me home with 0 points and a bit broken confidence. In Bilstain there were an off road part that was aprox 400m long with a totally crazy jump. I never got the hang of it and I guess most didn’t. Even the guys I spoke to with a quite solid MX background had problems with it as it was not well made. A LOT of crashes there. And for the rest it was just a bit too much offroad for me. Anyway I got to 15’th in the semifinal after a crash on the first lap making me finish the first lap dead last, 36’th. That made me start both finals on 30’th spot which in it self makes for a rough ride. A major crash in the jump made me retire in the first final and the second final I decided to take all the risks in the first lap and then play it reasonably safe. I went from 30 to 19 that first lap but got hit from behind in a braking sending me to the ground and the bike stalled. Finished 25 or something. But enough of that.
What I came home knowing was that I had lost 5-7 seconds on the long dirt part to the really fast riders but more or less nothing on the tarmac.
This was a bit discomforting as I’ve been riding so much cross the last months, but I guess it’s difficult to make up for the fact that a lot of the guys have been put on mx bikes by their fathers when they where 6 years old and I just my entry into that part of bike riding for real just recently. So I got home, parked the bike and did nothing for a few days and then made the decision to start riding more and tougher MX. Said and done. The last weeks I’ve been riding 2-3 times a week on a quite rough little track with a nasty table top and I’ve pulled shifts until I wanted to puke and then a little more. After a while I got the 15 meter tabletop to work quite well and the rest also a bit better and my arms have grown a bit stronger as well I guess. Just one thing. I actually broke my own rule of no bike training within 5 days of a race last week eager as I where to improve my mx-skills. Wednesday I went back out to ride a last time before this weekends races in Holland. It went quite well and my stamina had improved notecably. But I got a bit too cocky. At a few times I overtook the taple top lnding flat after it from 3-4 meters up. That hurts but it’s not really bad. After a while I noticed a bump 4 meters after the end of the big jump and started to think about really overtake it to land on the downslope of that one instead. Said and done. Daniel prepaired to make a +/- 20m jump with a landing zone that had to be correct to the meter. It didn’t go like that. As I sailed through the air I thought briefly that this is really gonna hurt and my mobile phone is in my van 100 meters away. Who is gonna call the ambulance?
BAM!!!
I landed 1 meter too short on the upslope of the bump with 17â€Â
