Forget everything I’ve written about pain and suffering. Everything before today was child’s play compared to this last kremis. 120 mean, mad riders. Pushing, shoving, swearing in Flemish, yelling, hitting, swerving, spitting (in my face), arguing, and FAST. The course was difficult, with a hill and a lot of wind. I missed the winning break of seven, but was in almost every attempt to bridge. I have never been in so many chase groups. We’d last for a lap, get caught by the dwindling peloton, then I’d go again. And again. And again until I couldn’t possibly do anything but sit and pray that there wasn’t a surge. By the end, there was a group of five a couple hundred meters up the road (plus the 7 that had over a minute on us) and then 40 or so left in the peloton. Things were getting crazy on the last lap, I conserved as much as I could until 1K to to, when people were just riding off the front. There was a slight lull in the speed at 1K and I just went without thinking. I passed a number of suffering riders, but completely died 200 meters before the finish and got passed by 8 guys. I ended up taking 24th. My entire body hurt after the race. It was simply insane.