UCI 1.12 Ghent Ieper "Belgian racing off with a Bang"

I'll start this post with a quote which my team manager puts on the bottom of every email, "Success is how high you bounce when you hit the bottom" according to this my race yesterday wasnt very succesfull as i found out (the hard way) that i dont bounce very high at all, its more of a Thud, Slide, then Rollover for a bit.
Within the first 10km of the race I found myselfl lying on the road after one of the locals decided that the footpath was a better option than the road swerving to the left, taking my front wheel with it.

The Dammage?
a few broken spokes where his rear skewer went through my front wheel, broken rear deraileur, bent deraleur hanger, cracked and scratched shift/brake levers, and broken biddon cage.
As a result I was forced to use one of the old team fuji's the mechanic had built to the same dimensions of my Apollo. despite being on a bike I had never ridden and which had the brakes to opposite way around I managed to work my way back through the convoy, and was amazed by how good/professional the other team car drivers are with helping riders back into the race after misfortune, until I rejoined the bunch. Once back in the bunch I took the chance to asses my injuries which were not serious, a graze to the hip knee and elbow, bruzed ego and shaken confidence. but after settling into the bunch it was clear that my km's were numbered with my hip getting progressively worse during the race. Once I realized there was no longer any point of racing for myself I set about doing what I could to help out my other team mates, taking Paavo's (the national u23 road race champion of finland)jacket back to the team car and picking up some biddons and food for other riders. I even tried fixing Paavo's rear brake calipers while riding next to him (not as easy as it sounds) as they had been nocked to the side causing them to rub.

And after about 100km we hit the first of the two hilly circuits which would take the race over the Monteberg and the Kemmelberg twice. As soo as the road tilted upward my hip decided that enough was enough and I sat up and headed to the feed zone where the team bus was parked.

I suppose all in all it wasnt a bad day in the office, apart from my tumble and not getting to race over the Kemmelberg, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the pace was no where near as fast as what I was expecting, and I was able to help out the team and win a few brownie points for the day.
"Paavo taking on a biddon at the feed zone"

Now on a less cycling related note, the race was held in the provence of West Flanders, and the sides of the course was littered with signs leading to war graves/cemetaries for Canadian ANZAC and commonwealth soldiers of WW2. and as some of you may know, the city of Ieper, was formerly known as Ypres, which is where one of the many legendary military engagements of WW2 occured.

Despite this the city square of Ieper (which we raced through) is one of the most beautiful cityscapes I have ever seen

We also raced underneath a magnificent archway/memorial to the soldiers who fought in the region which was a great experience and well worth seeing if you are in the area.