I survived (literally) another hard, chaotic weekend of racing.  Three more days in the bank, another 700km drive, and I am officially tired today.

Friday, we raced the Drentse 8 van Dwingeloo. It was 140km of flat racing with one short, 100m section of stones.  Not enough to create a selection, only enough to cause a little chaos on the entry and exits.  Aside from all the crashes throughout the race, it was fairly uneventful.  There were many, many, many attacks and attempts to form breaks, but nothing was going to go away.  My day was spent following as many of those attempts as I was in position to do, and also to escort our sprinter to better position a few times.  The final was the predictable bunch sprint in which the "en fuego" Teutenberg beat out my teammate Regina Schleicher.  Super teamwork all day from the Nurnberg team!  We even had sunshine and very little wind in Holland... In the spring???  Nice:)

The next day, we raced the 140km Novilon Drenthe, which included the familiar Drenthe cobblestones and the Vamberg and was another hard day of racing.  Again, I tried to do as much for the others as I could.  And since we were riding for the sprinters, I was only following the moves...or chasing anything dangerous that we missed.  Again, it was super  team work from the Becker sisters, Eva, Trixie, Regina, and I.  Trixie was super on the final Vam circuit and got away with a small group.  She ended up 2nd to the wonder-kid Vos.  All in all, another good team day.  We raced together, and it was fun to be a part of it.

The final day was the Ronde van Drenthe WC, 136km with multiple 3km pave sections and three times on the Vamberg mixed in.  Whew... I can't say that I did anything very useful.  I only had a few moments where I was in a position to follow moves and help.  For the most part, I was constantly avoiding crashes or recovering ground lost from the splits the crashes were causing...and only trying to get to my teammates.  Seriously, I don't think I have ever had a day like that.  I felt so unlucky, and like I was fighting the entire day just to get to the front of the bike race.  My effort to do something was there 100% of the time, but the chaos of the race took me out of doing much of anything significant...and finally with 15km to go, the last crash completely split off the bunch and ended my day.  Thankfully, Lotte, Eva, and Trixie were able to do the work of 20 girls throughout!  Suzanne was poised to win with Regina's help, but there was a small group that stayed about 7 seconds off the charging peloton.  Eva was in this and managed a 6th place which allowed her to earn more points in the WC overall.

And that my friends, was a solid 3 day racing block.

After the race, Eva, Trixie, and I piled in the Krafter  for our 700km drive back to Nϋrnberg where we arrived about 10pm.  After a good night’s sleep, Eva and I did a small press conference for the regional German newspapers and RTL television earlier today.  While tonight, we have been invited to some outdoor spring-fest with a bunch of other German “sporters” hosted by the Nϋrnberg paper.  I have no idea what to expect, or what I am getting into.  We'll see.   Hopefully, it is not too late of a night.

The next race is the Bundesliga in Gϋnzach on Sunday.  I will check in again then. 

From the 4^th hotel of my spring racing adventure… all the best and thanks again for all your support!

Amber