Koen's report of Paris-Tours

While the rest of the team who are going to race at the Herald Sun Tour are already on the way to Australia, I really wanted to race in Paris-Tours as I thought it would be a good race for me and a great chance to get a good result with my current form. I was therefore really motivated for this race and I did put myself out to be able to race here. 

Unfortunately the race was a real let down, for the whole day the race was really nervous and the chance of waaiers forming was constantly a threat. I knew that often in this race just after the feed zone the race would pick up so I was at the front of the peloton before we got to the feed zone when we were going through a corner. A rider from Lampre got scared by some grind on the road and he braked hard and his front wheel skidded out from under him. I was hoping I could manage to stay upright and get by but my front wheel got caught in his bike and I went over my handlebars and hit the ground. I hit it hard with my knees hitting the handlebars which gave me bruised knees but apart from that the crash wasn't that bad and I set off to rejoin the peloton by the following cars. While I was following among the following cars I saw that the wind had broken the peloton into five groups. I was well able to join onto the final group but their pace was not really good enough to rejoin the leading group so the race was over for me.

Not only have I fallen just before a 24 hour journey to Australia that I will be taking but due to the fall the chance of me riding a good result or even getting to the finish in Paris-Tours were gone. That doubles the misfortune and it doubles the disappointment.
Hopefully I'll have better luck in the Herald Sun Tour which starts on Wednesday but before that I have a really long time to sit in the airplane.

Greetings,
Koen