A moment from the Worlds

I have been a tad slack [well very slack] on getting this posted but what an experience the Worlds were, to do it for the first time and be a part of the team that pulls off the win is beyond anything I could have imagined. Thor was easily one of the favourites but to part of the winning team was unbelievable.
Mal drops by with a couple of his workstands for me to use as I prepare Thor's bike before Sunday's race.

We made the move to stay at a hotel in the city just near the start, you never know what can go wrong travelling to the start of a race. I was nervous the morning of the race I will admit. The day before I had spent checking over every detail on the bikes. Edvald had some brake cable inners that were starting to fray a bit where they clamp on the calliper, rather than risk them breaking I replaced them, things like this I was fussy about. Morning of the race I checked everthing again, brakes, gears and every bolt just to be sure. With the bikes appearing to be ready I was pacing up and down thinking in my head, going through my checklist to see if there was something I may have overlooked. Then there was a last minute change of Thor's bidon cage, although identical to the one on his reserve bike he said it would be better than the other. I wasn't about to argue with the man despite the short time I had to change them, plus fit a wheel magnet and change the wheels of Edvald. The one thing I have learned is to stay calm, if not mistakes can happen. I was so focused on having the bikes good I forgot to put my suitcase in the van, luckily the hotel staff kept ot aside for me.
the race car ready for the days race with Thor's spare bike at the front, Edvald's at the rear and Alexander's on the other side. I had to use about 3 or 4 zip ties to get Thor's bike to stay in the rack.

the riders get ready in the hotel lobby before riding off to the start.

at the start in Federation Square in Melbourne.

out on the road on the way to Geelong.

the three boys stick together after a piss stop.

While the race communication through out the race was rather poor there was some tense moments inside the car on that last lap. We would get very brief information on who was attacking and what the time gaps were. We were behind what was left of the main peloton and were unaware of what the gap was to the front group, as there was no info given and what seemed to be no team cars going through we thought the gap was not more than one minute. But on the long straight after the last climb we could clearly see the gap was more. I told Steffen just to pass the Peloton, it was more important we be behind the group with Thor. Without hesitating he put the pedal to the metal to catch the group with Thor. It was then we realised the gap was easily like 5 minutes or even more as we didn't catch the group until the first climb. If he had a mechanical in that time it would have been race over.

me in the car, hard at work of course.

At 10km to go it looked as thou Thor's race may be over [which he admitted later] as a small group was away with Gilbert further up the road. Luck would have it thou as it all came back together in the closing kilometers. In the car we were on the edge of our seats, the race radio was completely silent most of the time. With a not normal quiet radio Steffen opted for info by phone from Martin who was at the finish area watching it on tv. Martin informed us it was all back together and Thor went through the last corner in like position 6th or 7th wheel. Martin was informing Steffen of how the sprint was panning out. I was leaning over the passenger seat trying to ears drop on the details, none of which I could hear or really understand well. Then there was a brief silence from Steffen and from Martin on the phone, then there was a loud scream from Steffen, a long loud AAAARRRRRGGGGGHH!! "he won?" I shouted to Steffen. He was banging the steering wheel and replied "he won", followed by more screaming. We congratulated each other but there was a slight hesitation if it were confirmed, but some teams were already congratulating us so we knew it had to be real, or was it so close to need a photo finish, we weren't sure. We were still driving down past the 1km to go banner at this stage. On the final corner we stopped the car to view the replay on one of the huge spectator tv screens, for us it was confirmed, Thor with his arms in the air. Steffen and I congratulated each other again and drove on tooting the car horn and waving to the spectators. It was hard to take it all in at that moment, even I had to take a few deep breath's.

That night the team celebrated with a great dinner and lots of champagne. While most hit the night spots I opted to get an early night [2am was late enough] as there was much work to be done the next day. I had much running around to do and started my day of packing up at 7am, while most chose to sleep off their big night.

So after a week at home visiting family it was back home to Holland. I was flying back to Oslo to catch a flight to Stavanger to sort out the bikes from my Sparebanken team and then drive the truck back to Belgium, but a late email from Morten threw a spanner in the works. The truck was to stay in Norway now, and I had already booked my flight to Stavanger. After a few back and forth phone calls to Morten and a checking of available flights it was decided I would fly home. So I paid an extra 300 or so euros, waited 6 hours at Oslo and flew back to Brussels. Thou I may have to go back to Stavanger at some point to collect some tools I may need in the off season, now that I think of it I even left my workstand up there.

Now my Mum is here visiting so I will enjoy some down time [hence the delay of this post] while showing her around some of Holland and nearby places in Europe.

I must give a big thanks to Mal Sawford from CCCC, my brother Pete at Eltham Cycles and my parents for helping me with getting together materials for the Worlds.

Until next time
Mark