December 21, 2007 (Antwerp, Belgium) – Did my first race today in Antwerp. Over here we have a group of seven Canadians racing and helping out. We are staying at the cycling center in Hertzberg and have a great set up and took a really cool van to the course. A lot of riders have huge buses Winnebago’s as their transport and more bikes and wheels then you can shake a stick at. So I have now started my own supporters group and will be making up some clothes at a later date. I have attached a picture of the group’s president.

Women’s Race
In the women’s race Wendy Simms rode strong for a solid 4th and was with current world TT and former cyclocross champion, Hanka Kupnefel, for a lap. Other results in the women’s race were Barb Howe in 9th and Natasha Elliot in 13th. Highlighting the women’s race was the worst false start ever seen as the gun went off about 5 secs after the field had left and this caused a lot of confusion for some riders who had slowed thinking they were being called back. But in the end it was game on.

Men’s Race
In the men’s race I managed to finish on the same lap as the leaders as did Derrick St.John. I got a great start and threw a few elbows and was in the top 20 for a 1/2 lap until a Colstop Palmans rider did an endo in the sand and I had no choice but to plow into him. The cool part was that after I got up a Belgium fan righted my bike and I was on my way. This set me back about 10 spots. From there I rode steady and lost about two spots a lap to finish in 43rd.
Techincally the course was not bad and surprisingly I rode the sand not bad.

The only downer was a hard crash on the ice with three laps to go. I went down really hard and decided to back off from here as I was still feeling some jet lag and I still have four more races to compete in.