Today [Friday - ed.] we raced the GP de Ster Sint Niklaas pro and under 23 mixed race. Unlike the rest of the camp, today was the first day in two weeks where the ground was able to thaw out a little bit. That created a very greasy, slippery course and caused just about every one to crash at least once.
I thought the race went so-so, but definitely could have been better. With the bar being raised so much higher racing over here, you tend to push your self to limits a lot more, and with that, people crash more easily.
That is what happened to me, today, and I am sure every other person at least once on this slippery course. With my crash, I bent my bars and probably broke a spoke, so by the time I got to the pit mentally, I had kind of checked out of the race.
Everyone has heard about the racing, the fans and the overall atmosphere of racing in Europe being quite different from the USA. It is all a challenge to overcome and it takes some time to get used to. However, the biggest problem for me during the Euro Camp is not the racing or the change in environment; it is simply finding something to do during the day to entertain myself.
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I wake up at eight and am usually off training soon after. I return to the house somewhere in the twelve to one o'clock hour. Lunch goes by fast and soon I find myself with nothing to do. After the first couple days of the camp, internet gets old and watching the same songs on Jim TV (Belgian MTV) gets unbearable. There are only so many times in a day that I need to hear Womaniser and If I Were a Boy before losing a little bit of sanity.
Last week presented this problem a little more than this week since we had four days without a race. Nick and I were convinced to find a way to help cure the boredom and perhaps reclaim some of our sanity – or at least some of mine. After lunch on the 24th, I grabbed my photo gear we boarded the cruisers and set out to find something to entertain us.
