TOUR OF KOSOVO with EQUIPE C.M.I.

Equipe C.M.I., a team full of surprises. Working with these guys is always an adventure. First of all the races they pick, this time Kosovo, independant since 2010. Second surprise is how to get there.
Eather you pay an arm and a leg and fly direct to Pristina and arrive in the middle of the night. Or you pay only one arm or one leg and fly via Frankfurt, Ljubljana or Dusseldorf and still arrive in the middle of the night and missing your bike. Any way you pay more or less €400 to find out that the food is s**t. But the coffee was good!

The racing himself is another case. Every day you race on the motorway.

Up and down. They block all traffic on the motorway while the race is on. You can imagine that cyclist are very loved by car drivers in this country.
The police puts you and your family, in your car, on the side for an hour. All this in a temperature of around 35°C.
But ok we had a good time, no stress no rush as all teams stay more or less in the same hotel and you have every day a convoi to start with the help of the police.
Stage one from Lebane to Qafa e Dules, in fact 142km with one right turn. Probably the only stage that started on time. (only 12 minutes behind official start)

Nothing really went wrong, boys coming back for drinks every ten minutes. So Lieve had a lot of work in the car refilling bottles. No puctures at all. Lilian in the break for a while, but it came all together for the last climb. With Dudu finishing 6th on 16" and Smytey 11th on 19" we were in the top of the race.
Stage two started at the Albanian border (Morine) and finished in Macedonia (also on the border). Again a motorway race of 144km. This time the peloton sprinted for first place and Smytey got himself a 6th and Dudu in the bunch at 24th. All in the same time of the winner.
Third stage (159 or was it 152km?) went actually the other way around from the Macedonian border to the Albanian border. Well that is what we tought. Luckely the Dutch commissaire Edwin Cruijssen was on the ball and saw the mistake in the race book. Race finished 7km earlier. So with 25km to go he announced that we were only 18km from the finish line. Never mind, no problem for Dudu who finished 5th after a long uphill sprint.
After the race it was waiting a long time for the ceremony, even tough hundreds of cars were blocked on the Albanian border. After the long (read: too long) ceremony all the riders in the bus to Prizren where we had our dinner (or was it lunch) then back in the bus to the hotel. O and our car and the one of the Dutch team and a bus with 15 riders in it had the special treatment from the police. We have been escorted by two police cars (one in front and one behind) with wailing siren for 85km to the hotel.
Once again, people in Kosovo will love cycling!!!
Our team 
Guillaume "Dudu"Duverger : 6th / 24th / 5th / GC 5th on 49" / Points 5th
Alex Smyth : 11th / 6th / 24th / GC 13th on 52"
Lilian Sanvincente : 44th / 40th / 44th / GC 43th on 17'13"
Guillaume Soula : 45th / 45th / 46th / GC 45th on 20'49"
Simeon "Sim"Green : 46th / 44th / 47th / GC 46th on 20'49"
Lieve Drieghe : soigneur and mecanic (only one wheel change)
Dirk : DS

from left to right : Sim, Alex (Maltese road champion) Guigui, Dudu, Lilian.

I was a happy DS with a five mens team. We lost two riders on the way to Kosovo, Thomas Peyroton Dartet and Stevan Kervadec, who broke his foot in the Zurich airport.
With two guys on GC and three great helpers/workers I can say we did a great Tour of Kosovo!

O, one more thing: all three stages and GC were won by Charalampos Kastrantas (Greece).

Czech Cycle race, coffee, potatoes and soup

It was sunny when Lieve and I arrived at Sittard to pick up our 6 team members form the Mike Greer Homes Womens Cycling Team. Only one girl I met before, Niamh, last year at worlds in Innsbruck. The other ones, Alana, Connie, Emma, Libby and Alecia were new to us.

The next day we left Watersley Sportpark with our teamcar and a van driven by Matias. Off to Czech. We arrived in Krasna Lipa late in the afternoon, but still time for a short spinning.

The” Tour de Feminin” had four days of racing in a beautiful hilly area, decorated with forest, fields and small villages. Four stages in line plus a TT. All in Bohemian Switzerland in and around Krasna Lipa.

That is what has been offered to our four New Zealand girls and

one Australian. All this would have been perfect if the rain didn’t come down buckets full, thunderstorms, flooded roads. That made it very dangerous for crashes and the chance for punctures increased. The girls battled through some unlucky crashes, mechanicals and truly horrendous weather to come away with sprint and QOM points, some great finishes and demonstrated incredible grinta in this conditions.

In stage one Libby came down getting around a roundabout but still finished the race. Altough two minutes before the start of stage two I made the dicision to withdraw her from the race. I did not want to take a risk of another crash with her already injured knee. There is no doubt about that our best climber was Niamh staying with the best in every stage resulting in a awesome spot on GC and KOM. Connie finished almost every day in the main bunch and finished well on GC, while Alana and Emma lost some time due mechanicals and also lack of experience. So they learned a lot in this four days.

And all this on a diet of potatoes and soup in a “half star” hotel. I don’t complain about the rooms but it was all very basic. The beds not more then a plank and a foam. In the shower you had to run around to get wet, a little brownish kindy water came out of the sprinkler. No new towels for 5 days and like I said, apart from the breaky the lunch and diner was poor. But that was the same for all teams. And it was even worse when the mecanics, soignees and yes the DS’s too wanted to sit down for a cold Pivo, the bar shut at 9PM.

But ….. the coffee shops were great. Lieve and I and “coffee runner” Alicia found a few ones with high quality coffee and cakes.

KAVARNA U TADEASE what I guess means coffee bar.

In Chribska Lieve and I went to the main square and found our first surprise. Hard to believe but a cappuccino, a espresso macchiato and two delicious cakes for 99CZK = €4.

Same happend in the oldest house of Krasna Lipa where we had nice coffees while waiting for the take away ones for the rest of the staff.

Alicia found super brew for the staff in Rumburk and Varnsdorf.

Was the food a minor point, the racing and the coffee was superb!

Directly after the finish of the last stage we drove 250km to a small village in former “East” Germany where everybody enjoyed a well deserved hamburger in an awesome American Bar. On the tunes of YMCA we all finished a great journey. After a good sleep we dropped off some riders at Dusseldorf airport and drove back to Sittard. From then on it was in relax mode on the square of Sittard for a feed and a beer with Matias, Alicia, Ritchie, Lieve and meself

The next morning we had a lovely brunch (thanks Alicia!) and drove back to Gent.

·         Niamh FISHER-BLACK – NZL                      

·         Connie O’BRIEN - NZL

·         Emma SMITH - NZL

·         Libby ARBUCKLE - NZL

·         Alana FORSTER - AUS

·         Matias FITZWATER – NZL – mecanic

·         Lieve DRIEGHE – BEL – soignee

·         Alicia EVANS – NZL – soignee

·         Me – BEL – DS

Results

Stage 1 – 25/Niamh 36/Connie 84/Alana 118/Emma 145/Libby

Stage 2 – 29/Niamh 47/Connie 92/Emma 126/Alana DNS/Libby

Stage 3 – 39/Niamh 70/Connie 77/Emma 92/Alana

Stage 4 – 14/Niamh 22/Connie 88/Alana 118/Emma

Stage 5 – 20/Niamh 63/Connie 68/Alana 92/Emma

GC – 26/Niamh 44/Connie 92/Alana 103/Emma

KOM – 5/Niamh

Teams – 12/Mike Greer Homes Womens Cycling Team (27 teams in the race)