I am going to take the opportunity to talk about my last races since I last wrote. 1st up was the Guellegum professional kermesse. I was highly disappointed with the result because I had the best legs I have ever had. Constantly near or off the front I felt I deserved a very good placing. My mistake was not to follow Robbie McEwen for the second time he attacked and he got away with 5 others making it to the end of the race. Im no sprinter at the best of time and with the pros, its dangerous and too fast for me.

The next race I got run over by my DS. 50km in to the race I crashed into a corn field and therefore I was now off the back of the bunch by about 3 mins. I chased into the cars and was weaving my way through. I got to our car at 3rd from the back (of 32 cars – still 2km from the bunch) I got a “sticky bidon”. You hold a bottle out of the car window whilst doing 80 – 90 kph to get back to the bunch. There was not left enough space between the pavement and the car and my handlebars hit the car i crashed really hard. Then it was a trip into the ambulance to the hospital for x-rays for my severly swollen arm and many abrasions. Luckly my arm was not broke, and skin heals.

So, off to the tour of Serbia. I had a fantastic first stage, in theory setting me up for the entire tour. There was a break of 16 guys off the front with me in it. The stage was just one long straight road with a left turn into the tour for the finish. The race manual was quite useless and did not tell us the last 1km was on cobbles. If i have know i would have taken my chances on my own. I ended 9th. For a little extra disappointment i rode flat out from 5km to 4km from the finish to drop the other U23 in the break, therefore – i thaught giving me the U23 jersey. He had got a 2nd on a intermediate sprint and despite dropping him for 2 seconds he was in the jersey by 2 seconds. The second stage was my downfall. I hit my knee on the handlebars 5km from the top of a 20km climb. It went dead. I lost 20 mins and could only ride with one leg. The next day it was unbareable. I rode with one leg again and finished about 30mins down. I could now not move it. End of tour. Also, perhaps, end of season. A month on now and im still in pain and not riding. Im back in Belgium and waiting to see the specialist.