Five of the clubs U16's and Juniors spent the weekend in Belgium as part of a trip organised by Alan Rosner, head of the Youth & Junior Eastern Region road race teams.

There in support were coaches Dave Farrell and Francis Gallacher. This is Daves report of the weekend..

Thankfully it stayed dry and calm but it was really cold. The thermometers were showing around 5 degrees at midday but in the morning and evening it was nowhere near that - it was made even colder by a breeze that was ice cold.

All five boys did us really proud. Great fun and really good experience for riders and coaches alike.

The rides were organized with a lead car and two sag waggons behind. Francis drove as lead car with me map reading – no pressure there then! Lead car and last sag waggon were fitted out with race radios and flashing lights - all traffic simply stopped and watched us go by. It was amazing to see cars with trailors reversing back up a road to let us go by and wait and smile to cheer on the riders.  

Saturdays’ ride was a steady group ride with attacking up the cobbled sections. The last proper climb that day was the Koppenberg - 4 of the first 5 riders at the top were Welwyn, then a gap of a minute or so to the next group. We finished by trying to get them to ride the 30KM back to the youth hostel but some of the group had started to fragment and when the light closed in we called it a day and got them back into the cars. They were all very quiet on the way to the Youth Hostel.

The Youth Hostel was fine…sufficient for one night anyway. Once we had dinner we tried getting the riders into the local carting place but they were fully booked. Back at the hostel there were the normal dorm pranks that inevitably involved Alex and the laughter that seemed to rattle all the doors in a way that can only happen in a youth hostel or student accommodation. The noise went on well into the night and early hours for one room, whilst the other rooms all tried to sleep, all good on tour stuff.

Sunday started with a trip to the bike museum shop where there were lots of “must have” cycling clothes including Cadel evans’ skin suit for 15 Euros. I personally purchased possibly the most hideous cycling shirt at the bottom of a pile of clothes in the corner of the shop. It cost 2 euros – the cost is a true indication of how nasty it really was. Lime green and brown check with a floppy collar, just fabulous. I bought it as a forfeit for the rider to wear who made a stupid comment or action during the day. Deep down we all knew who’d be wearing it first but what was amazing was how hard he tried.

We all know about Alex and his obsession with carbon, what I didn’t know is that it is just the same for trade lycra. He ran round the bike shop deciding which team he was going to be in, going from one team to the next and at one point he couldn’t decide and had shorts from one team and a jersey from another, all the coaches left them to it. When I met him in the queue for the till he was holding a Rabobank top, Rabobank shorts, socks and overshoes – I asked hin 'How much did that little lot come to?- a blank look back, it hadn’t even registered what it all cost and how much money he had. Suffice to say it was champagne taste and beer money. He quickly dived back into the shop and returned clutching a trade jersey and a pair of overshoes from the bargain bucket. The overshoes were XXS (not even size 1 adult size) - it took some convincing from Francis that they would, under no circumstance, fit over his shoes. There were more instances of Alex-“isms” including the comment about the way in which everyone in Belgium must be able to spell in English because of the English keyboard on the tills computer…….classic.

ALEX….THE SHIRT IS ALL YOURS!!!! He wore it for about half of the ride.

Despite an early start and breakfast at 8 we didn’t get them riding until 12:15. Francis and I were lead car again, with the route left open for us to decide. Basically we decided to wind our way across lanes to find as many stretches of cobbles as we could. We started with a warm up and then stopped at the bottom of the Koppenberg for a photo shoot and the start of a surprise TT up it. Alex came third overall with Tom G a few seconds behind in 4th, Josh 7th and George and Dan joint 9th (14 riders in total). The Welwyn rode quite strongly all day, Alex climbed extremely well and Tom G did a quite but consistant ride across both days. In pure effort, all the riders gave it their all. The last stretch of cobbles we took them up was the longest stretch of cobbles shown on the map and it splintered the group by a good five minutes from first to last rider. It was 4:30 at this point and we were rapidly running out of time to get back to the ferry. We got them all back together as a group and rode on for another few miles as a warm down and then threw everyone back into the cars to make our way home. A bit of a tight squeeze for the ferry - I think we were the last ones on, just about getting there on the minimum allowed time before the ferry.   

They did over a 100 miles over the two days and we managed to find all except a few of the listed cobbled stretches shown on the map. The Welwyn boys conducted themselves brilliantly over the whole of the weekend, having fun and being sociable, whilst at the same time making sure they listened and were sensible when it mattered. I was really proud to be a Welwyn Coach!   

Francis and I stocked up on maps and hostel info as we think it would make a good event for the whole club to do and hopefully do on a more regular basis. By sharing transport costs it wasn’t overly expensive. Speaking with Francis over the weekend we both think it would be a good idea to get our U14, U16’s, Juniors and Seniors across there to train on a regular basis certainly think it would be good to get the academy over there and perhaps link it in with a race.

Cheers, Dave

P.S. Alex is putting together a video diary of the weekend - be afraid, be very afraid....