Oh man, when will it end?

This weekend I started the Hel van het Mergelland a UCI 1.1 race. It was in the Ardennes, following a similar course to the Amstel Gold race, so a course that is pretty good for me, full of climbs between 1 and 4 kilometers long. Present were Milram, Lotto, and Rabobank, as well as a half dozen good Pro Continental teams. The race started off super fast like I expected but I managed to move up to the top 30 as we hit the first climbs. Going up I felt really good, the pace was fast but not at all difficult and I could basically move up whenever I wanted to on the climbs. Then 15 km into the race we were going down long gradual right sweeping turn when guys in front of me ran into each other and then suddenly there were a bunch of guys on the ground in front of me. I slammed on my brakes and went from 55 km/hr to about 20 km/hr until I eventually ran into one of them and hit the ground. I was basically ok, although my right knee is a bit bruised and swollen, but my bike was messed up. I had to stand there for a minute and a half before it was even rideable and even then I couldn't use my 11, 19, 21, and 23 cogs because my derailleure hanger was so bent. I chased and got to within 200m of the back of the field and then exploded. Eventually rolled home with a group of 6 guys who were also dropped for one reason or another. Mathias Gade had an awesome ride for a 19 year old to finish in the peleton for 41st place, he is two years younger then the second youngest finisher.

At least I got a good photo taken:

Then yesterday I did the GP de la Ville de Nogent-sur-Oise, a UCI 1.2. Considering I didn't finish the day before they put me to work covering all of the attacks and chasing down dangerous moves that we missed. I rode pretty well and did a ton of work, but 30 km to go we missed a big move of about 25 and so we needed to get to the front right away to start chasing. Three of us made it to the front. I was the last guy and when I got to the front they still had a decent gap so I ended up spending 1.5 km on the front going 50 km/hr to catch the break. I did it, but the problem was that I caught them 500m before the start of a decent 2km hill. Being at the limit before the bottom of the last real hill in a race is not usually a good idea and so I just missed the front split over the top. And my day was done. Berling had been saving himself the whole day and had good legs coming up to the finish but got a puncture with 10 km to go so he could not get back to the front before the spint. So basically it was an unlucky weekend all around. But oh well, there are plenty more races this year starting with the four I do this coming weekend.

I just gotta stop falling off my bike.