Arriving in Greenwich Park

With a little training under my belt I set off to London, via a visit to my parents in Suffolk, and boarded the Eurostar bound for Brussels on 4th July.  After a super quick journey, all 200-ish of us descended on the Belgian capital and wondered off to find our hostels.  There was no cycling for us on this day of the trip, but the Tour De France was in town so we headed to Heysel for the stage finish.

The atmosphere was great and it was HOT in the sun, but finding a good spot to watch the finish was difficult.  Still, we had the meet with HTC Columbia to look forward to.  Or did we... 

Cavendish got caught out on the last corner and was out of the sprint finish, and by the time I made it through the crowds to the HTC cars they were leaving.  Still a good day though.

The next three days were full on cycling days.  Day 1 had some signage issues and the stage ended up being nearly 20 miles longer than it was supposed to be.  It was still a lot of fun though and I was carrying enough food with me to keep going strong.  Arrived in Brugge with the lead group so I was very happy indeed.  The second day was 75 miles through to Calais so I nice easy ride (though trying to push out high speeds made it tough!).  After all the country roads the traffic in Calais was a shock to the system I can tell you!

Day 3 started with a ferry crossing to Dover, and then a far tougher ride, through Kent and into London.  The hills added an extra challenge to the day and made it far more interesting than the previous flat stage.  I kept going past people on the climbs to only be overtaken again as I took the decents cautiously!  Made it to the finish in Greenwich around 5pm which was, again, near the front of the group, and everyone had a good time with photos, beers, and a bbq!

This leads me to my injuries...  Apparently I may have over-cooked it a little on the bike so when I started running again (following a weeks rest) I tore both my quads slightly.  Not a major injury but enough to cause a lot of pain at Tour 3 in Cardiff and the physio says I should have 4-6 rest.  That rules me out of Regionals unfortunately but I should be back in time for Copa.

So on to the upcoming events!  Regionals is next weekend and I have 7 teams coming to Mount St Mary's to compete, including 2009 European Champions Chevron Action Flash, from Manchester, and recent UK Tour semi-finalists LeedsLeedsLeeds.  The number of teams is a little disappointing but this is a new venture and is guaranteed to grow in the coming years.

I am also pressing on with plans for the Charity Hat Tournament, taking place in September.  I still need more entries for this though so I need to promote it further somehow.  Hopefully a few of the new Sheffield players will get involved.

Finally, I have successfully bid for Northern University Mixed Indoor Regionals, to be held at Ponds Forge in November.  I will be co-hosting the event with Sheffield Ultimate, with any proceeds going to the club.