Dikkebus Kermesse

Yesterday, I had a kermesse in Dikkebus which would finally be considered a true kermesse according to the other guys on the team. It consisted of narrow roads with lots of wind. The field was fairly small this time around with only 66 racers. The race was a 6.3 km loop where we had to do 18 laps. I began at the front of the peloton with Evan just ahead of me where we made it around for 2 laps until Evan began to drift back a bit.

After passing through lap 2 I was bumped out on the first corner after the Start/Finish line. I was following the line the guy in front of me took until I felt handlebars pushing the side of my hip until I was off the road. I was going to try and hop onto the sidewalk but I found that it wasn't feasible as my tires were skidding along the edge of the curb. I was able to come to a stop off the side of the road as both of my feet unclipped. I clipped back in as fast as I could, but the peloton would whiz past with just the tail of it in sight. I chased back on which consisted of me burning a match. I was stuck at the back but that was still too late as the inevitable small breakaway already occurred. Smaller groups of two to four guys would jump as well until the break had a total of 27 guys. Our team was found in the last group. Casey, Evan, and Scott worked quite a bit at the front launching attacks and basically making it into a good training day. After about an hour and a half they rang the bell for our group. I went off the front with a teammate and another rider and caught two guys up the road. We joined together but soon it was just Dean and I through to our group's finish. I placed 28th but the lead group still raced for another hour. It looked as though they pulled guys until there were only about 11 or so left. It was an okay day, but I still have some work to do in order to try and stay at the front.