Herzele Kermese
Herzele Belgium
26 March 2008

Who raced: Ian Holt

Ian's report:
Place: DNF (was 60th my last time through the start / finish)
Race Distance: 120km
Description of Course: 10, 12km circuits with a lot of climbing
Number of starters: 150+

This was my first Kermese in Belgium, I was a bit nervous from all the talk. From the gun I kept moving up until I was at the front of the peloton and immediately followed an attack and then countered. The legs felt good and I stayed in the top 20 the entire race and went with different moves every few minutes. The attacking was relentless and half seemed dangerous enough to succeed. Halfway through the race I thought to myself a top ten could definitely be in the cards, at the least a top 30. I was still one of the strongest riders in the field and many times the field split with 20-30 riders and I was always in the front group but it kept coming back together.

Unfortunately it started pouring rain and got very cold. I lasted about an hour in the rain before I succumbed to hypothermia. I only had two laps to finish the race but the light switch completely went off and I was shaking so bad I almost couldn't hold the bars or steer. My fingers were so numb I could barely shift and I couldn't squeeze the water bottle hard enough to get water out. My feet were so swollen that they almost didn't come out of my shoes, so I guess I had a legit reason for DNFing but still it was disappointing.

Only 56 guys finished, the last guy was our only teammate to finish and he is from Alaska. It was a really hard race and took a lot out of me. Now, I'm just trying to recover now for the race coming up on Sunday.