As a team, we made the most of our time between the Castilla and Flanders World Cups by scheduling a sponsor visit to our sponsor to SRM in Germany, getting in some solid training rides and organizing a pre-ride of the course in Flanders.

The SRM headquarters is close to the borders of Belgium and the Netherlands. Ulrich Schoberer, the inventor of the SRM, welcomed us to the company. The company is named after him, though for English speakers, Schoberer Rad Messtechnik is a little bit more difficult to say than “SRM.” Schoberer is a great host, he took us for nice dinners, did some testing on us and organized some locals to lead our training rides and show us the roads.

This is a beautiful region to pedal in, as there are many steep hills and forests. We passed many of the well-known battlefields from World War II on our rides through the hills, including a gravesite where 60,000 Americans were buried. After a few solid training days, we traveled to Belgium to pre-ride the Flanders World Cup course. Two days before the race, the signs were already out on this point-to-point course, marking each turn, each hill and counting down the kilometers.

The first Tour of Flanders took place in 1913. It zig-zags through the region and is raced over nearly the same roads each year, some cobbled and some paved. The men’s race travels over eighteen climbs, while the women’s race travels over nine. With the cobbles, the hills, the tight turns and narrow roads, it is the most technically difficult course on the women’s world cup circuit. We pre-rode the course from start to finish, taking note of the obstacles.

We stationed ourselves in Kortrijk for the days leading up the race at the Hotel Damier. It is a beautiful, old hotel in the center of the city. U.S. Postal stays at the Damier through most of the classics and Nico, the hotel chef, is a huge cycling fan. He fed us like kings and queens and made us laugh too.

The shopping in Kortrijk is amazing, there are beautiful upscale clothing and shoe shops, nice bakeries and four chocolate shops within a block of our hotel, all of which provided a huge temptation to explore and shop, but there was no time to take it all in, as we had a race to prepare for. This is definitely a place I’d like to come back to in the future.

Race Day
Our race started in the center of Oudenaarde. We had nearly 40 kilometers on flat open roads before hitting the hills. The first forty kilometers were windy and the peloton was nervous; there were several crashes as riders where fighting for position and avoiding obstacles, like seams in the roads, barriers, roundabouts, and the gutters.

Farm Frites took control of the race from the start, riding tempo at the front with their two leaders, Mirjam Melchers and Leonteen Van Moorsal, sheltered from the wind as much as possible. With the speeds high, it made it a little easier to hold position, but I was happy when we finally hit the hills, as each one thinned the peloton and reduced the nervousness in the bunch.

We cruised over the first five hills at high speeds, with riders falling off the back, but no major attacks. Then, we hit a two-kilometer, rough cobble section, which splintered the peloton, followed by a couple of more hills. Positioning was critical in this section, as it was hard to make up a gap if someone opened on in front of you. I tried to stay at the front as much as possible and save my legs for the final two hills of the day.

There was some regrouping of the peloton before we hit the infamous Muur. This is the second to last climb, where the winning move in the men’s race traditionally occurs. It is a steep, cobbled climb, with a maximum gradient of 20 percent. Zulfia Zabirova attacked just before we made the sharp right turn to head up the Muur and no one could follow. She opened up a gap with everyone chasing hard behind and the peloton splintered once more.

The gaps were not huge at the top of the climb; several small groups were split by seconds. Van Moorsal, Melchers and Trixi Worrack were the next riders to reach the summit. They chased very hard and nearly caught Zabirova, as she only had a seven-second lead coming into the finish.

Amber and I were dangling not far behind them with a small group led by Olivia Gollan, who was chasing for her teammate, the current World Cup leader, Oenoe Wood. A lot of regrouping occurred on the lead in to the finish and Amber and I rolled in with a group of about 30 riders.

T-Mobile started with five riders, Kimberly Bruckner, Amber Neben, Stacey Peters, Dotsie Cowden and me. Kimberly had a fall in the first 200 meters and now has three fractures in the fingers of her hand. Her adrenalin got her right back on the bike and she finished the race without any complaints, but she is now feeling the pain from her fall. Dotsie had some bad luck too, as she had two flat tires.

Next on the agenda is a kermesse in Belgium on Wednesday and then the three-day Ronde Van Drenthe in Holland.