Tour of the Battenkill,

Well, this was actually good fun. It’s nice to do a “real” race again where things are steady and controlled. The gravel sections really weren’t the descider of the race as I thought they would be. I actually did better than I thought I would. I didn’t think I’d finish this race, especially as that “northern classic” stuff isn’t my style of racing… and I hadn’t raced 200k since 2004 in Austria, and the last time I did a “long race” of 175k was at the Tour of Cameroon at the end of 2007 season. My training has also been steadily decreasing since I’ve got to the US. So needless to say, I was pretty happy to finish, even though it was, as Darren Lill said to me in a E-mail “albeit LAST”. I got popped with 40k to go and rode the last 30 odd K alone. That was pretty horrible. I felt like total shit then!

All in all it was a great weekend. I had really good fun, enjoyed the racing. I really want to thank all the guys who helped out up there, gave us feeds etc. Special Thanks to Terry who drove the team car in the caravan having never seen a caravan before, and he did a great job.