Trail Bikes/Eatmore Sprouts team member Nigel Ellsay has been absent from North American racing this last month. Ellsay was competing and training in the heart of the road scene in Belgium, Holland and Germany from May 3rd to 30th with the Canadian National Junior Men’s Road Team. Let’s listen to what Ellsay had to say about his adventure...
Arriving in Tielt-Winge (“Ting-Wing”), Belgium was quite an experience for me. Having 2 new coaches, 5 new teammates/friends, overcoming jet-lag and trying to learn the way a country works can be quite difficult... Fortunately though, life goes on. I soon started to familiarize myself with Coaches Nat Faulkner, Matt Knight and athletes Alex Cataford (18yrs, Ottawa, Ontario), Oliver Delaney (18yrs, Montreal, Quebec), Simon Trivett (17yrs, Charlottetown, PEI), Ty Andrews (18yrs, Calgary, Alberta) and my good friend Jeff Doyle (18yrs, Victoria, BC).
We were all staying at the quaint CCA house in the center of Tielt-Winge. Tielt-Winge is located South-East of Brussels, in the Flemish are of Belgium and is a typical Belgian community with a grocer, bakery, pubs and an awesome deli.
After a few days of riding, learning some of the Belgian culture and eating plenty of yummy Belgian waffles, the weekend came and with all spring/summer weekends comes bike races! We were to experience our first 2 Belgian Kermises.
The first Kermis we rode started at 3pm (much more civilized that the usual 10am North-American start times) on a 10km course filled with small rolling hills, main roads and bike paths. At the start line we were greeted by 150 other juniors starring us down just as much as we were starring them down! This was going to be fun! A soon as the gun went off the winning break went off the line, and unfortunately for me I was 3rd row (of 25)! But we ended up with 2 boys in the break, well representing us and we finished up with a 6th place.
The second kermis we rode would turn out similar to this one.
The following weekend we headed over to Frankfurt, Germany for the 3-Ettapen Rundfhart a UCI 2.1 all juniors stage race. The first stage on the agenda was an 8km pan flat prologue. Regrettable for our team, we hadn’t bother bringing our TT bikes overseas, due to costs and we were forced to ride our road bikes with clip-on bars. After the TT I was sitting 66th overall, 1:05 behind the leader and 10 seconds behind Alex.
The next stage would turn out to be one of the most gruelling stages in my entire life; 110km’s of beautiful German Countryside filled with 2000m of climbing! I rode well and was dropped 1km from the final summit with Alex, unfortunately we were the first riders to reach the finish line from our team.
The following day turn out to be a rather boring day with all riders riding defensively, and the race finished with a bunch sprint
The final stage race on our hands was the 3 days of Axel Race in Axel, Holland. The racing in Holland would also prove to be the hardest racing I’ve ever. The reason for this, as any European racer would know, is because the flat terrains and wind in Holland combines for a whole lot of riding in the gutter.
The first stage had our first cobbles in it, with four 3km sections, and let me tell you cobbles can either make our break your race and for me and most other people these cobbles broke our races! During every cobbled section there would be a pile up of riders and riders would be all over the road finding the best line. Also, the entire race was in the gutter with 0 draft available to any riders, as the wind always felt like it was on our sides! After being dropped and chasing back through the caravan a couple times, I was finally dropped for good with fellow compatriot Alex.
The next day was a double day with a TT in the morning a road race in the evening. At the TT I rode well and placed similar the prologue in Germany, well down the results but still not too far off.
During the evening we started our 110 km road race, me recovering after having extreme stomach cramps all afternoon. Unfortunately for me after making the split in the first half of the race I was forced to retire due to more extreme stomach cramps. That would be the end of the stage race for me.
The next 2 weeks would be filled with trying to figure out my ailing health problems. Oddly enough I never found out what the problem was or what caused the awkward problems.
All in all I learned many things on my European trip, like how early you have to get to the start of a kermis to get a good placing on the line, how to live without mom for a month, I learned how to survive in Europe, how to race a European bike race and many other useful tools I couldn’t have learned through North American racing. I realize I still haven’t perfected all my new skills and still have a lot more to learn, but hey, everybody’s gotta start somewhere.
The B category was off next with a pack of 7 riders.
After 6 laps (62.2 km.), the race finished with a pack sprint. James took the sprint over Hugh Park and Rob Stabler.
Overall, it was a great day of racing, besides the two crashes.