After a knee injury set back Dan Patten's preparation for the National Championships on the 29th June, he decided to travel to Belgium to test his strength and hone his form over two day's hard racing, and capped the weekend with a fine 11th place on Sunday 22nd June.
Dan takes up the story:
Saturday 21st June: HAMME
133 riders started the race which was won by Guy Smet from a small group of five who had managed to pull out a 30 second gap over the bunch. Everything else came back together in the finale, apart from this small group which jumped away in the last couple of laps. I had much better legs than i thought i was going to have going into the weekend and spent the first 45 minutes riding close to the back. However, with the amount of riders in the race, it was a long way to get to the front when it was all strung out and, with riders starting to lose wheels towards the rear, i decided to move up the field. I got in some promising moves that, if it wasn't for the peletons efforts to keep it all together, would have been well away. After doing a good effort on the front, I found myself off the front on my own and when i was joined by other riders, once again it looked a very promising move but with a lap to go it all came back together once more. Five riders had managed to escape, but other than that it was a bunch finish with some twists and turns going into the town for the last time. I finished safely in the bunch, having had a good workout with an average speed of 43.8km/hr and some time off the front.
Sunday 22nd June: OOSTROZEBEKE
122 riders took to the start today and the race was won by Joeri Clauwaert. Again quite a large field turned out, including the Belgian Espoirs National Champion, and a frantic pace was set from the start. In what was a much windier day than previous it made for a hard race and about a third into the race the move of the day went clear and i could sense that this was going to stay away. I work hard to get myself into the group and despite the attempts of some of the riders in the group trying to take me out the back, i hung in there and rode some good strong turns. Keeping the pace high, the gap went out and it looked like it was going to be the winning move until into the last four or so laps, the riders began to attack from the break. I managed to get myself in these attacks but the rest of the breakway riders were not going to give it up that easy. With two laps to go, the definative attack came and it split the break. After all the effort i had put in to get to and to keep driving the break, i was finding it hard and felt that the chance of fighting it out for the win was slipping away from me. Over the last 10km i dug deep to keep ahead of the rapidly approaching chase group and with a gap of around going into the final 3 km, i though i might get caught. On the finishing straight i was dangling in the headwind and looking back i could see the group trying to get across to me, however fellow British rider Chris Mcnamara (Wildside RT) said after that he wanted to get across but without dragging the other riders with him. As the line approached, i could see that i wasn't going to get caught and crossed the line for 11th with the next group immediately behind.
Overall it was a good weekend's racing in preparation for the Nationals!
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