Hal Sloane, Ronde van Brisbeen 35+ 4

Guess I'll weigh in on the race so folks know I actually showed up. Hell, knowing that the race is just a warm up to the KBC Driedaagse De Panne-Koksijde, Bel (2.HC) and De Brabantse Pijl - La Flèche Brabançonne, Bel I had to show up. I needed to get in the mindset of the hard men of Vlaanderen. That being said I had two race goals. 1) Line up at the front so as not to waste precious fat guy energy trying to advance and close gaps for the first couple of laps and; 2) Not get pulled. Mission accomplished. I even stayed with the group a little longer than I thought I would. Alas, with 4 to go I succumbed to "fat guy faces hill for the umpteenth time" syndrome and slowly lost sight of Lee and the rest of the 25 or so guys remaining. Results read 69th. DFL of all the starters but I'm guessing they were as far off with my placing as they were with Lee's. I looked back several times to see big groups of riders trailing off the back. Oh well. Kind of cool to be 69th heh heh.

Hal