Blogs
Mon, 23 Aug 2010
Penny and Helen predict Albstadt
By Penny Rowson & Helen Wyman - Horizon Fitness Racing Team
Having had the worst 2 weeks of summer weather in living Belgium history (slight over exaggeration but just wishing to emphasise the point) the team decided to try our luck in Germany for a 3-day stage race in Albstadt, one and a half hours north of Switzerland.
The race is famous for having potentially the best food on the racing circuit, and having spent hours bigging it up to the girls, I’m pretty glad once again it was magic. We know how much Simmo loves her food, but I have never heard someone swoon over a curry sauce for 20 minutes until last night's dinner. The race also has the great advantage of having every stage within an easy riding distance of the sport school where we stay. Unfortunately the school is at the top of a hill with 12% signs on every way in… doh!
My roomy for the trip has been junior super talent Penny, who from this point on is contributing to this blog.
So Penny, what do you think of the race so far? I’m not entirely sure how to translate ‘northern’ into a blog, but I will try my hardest... so she said ‘it's ‘ard. It’s a good race cause we not gettin our ‘eads kicked in’
To sum up the race? ‘It wer wonderbar!!’
At this point I do have to add a slight disclaimer about Penny not actually sounding quite so silly and she can speak Queen's English when required, as she demonstrated last night after insisting we didn’t sound southern because we ‘didn’t speak posh like’. That was in between Dutch lessons from Britt and big Stef (our 2nd in command for the weekend) which I’m not entirely sure I’ll be able to use, but at least no-one can claim our team does not have an active education element.
As for the race itself, it’s been ‘a bit of everyfing so far’ (from Penny’s perspective) starting with a 20km criterium which Hanka Kupfernagel decided to start at around 100km per hour from the line, leaving just 12 of us after 4 laps. The 2nd day followed with a longer 85km race around a 10km circuit, with a rather long, slightly steep in places hill, and a wicked descent. Then today's stage, which we are yet to ride, is a cross between the two; 82km over a 3.4km circuit.
As we are writing this blog before the final stage, we could predict a result, or just leave it for another team mate to fill in the blanks. However, me and Penny do actually think we could make quite good mystic Megs so we will leave you with our final predictions, which by the time you read this blog will know if they came true or not:
Penny predicts ‘erm….I dunno’
Helen – ‘I’m not writing that, you’ll just look stupid’
Penny – ‘all right then, I’m predicting a top 40 for me, but I don’t know if that can happen cause there are some beasty people in this race.’
Helen – ‘Right then, I’m gonna say that Hanka will win the stage in a smaller bunch sprint of maybe 30 riders after there having been a break of 3 for half the race, in which I was one of them!’
Penny – ‘whatever, dream on.’
For more information about the Horizon Fitness Racing Team, visit www.onthedrops.com.