In his latest update for Crash.net, rising 250 GP star Chaz Davies reviews round seven of the 2005 world championship; the Dutch TT at Assen - which saw the Aprilia Germany rider finish a 'duffed-up' fourteenth after an eventful weekend, before which he and Sylvain Guintoli took part in a mammoth 71.5-mile bicycle race...
After the Spanish GP in Barcelona I got home on the Monday evening, which gave us just about a week before we were back on a plane again and off to Assen. I was pretty knackered on the Tuesday and Wednesday after being away for over two weeks so I didn’t really get a great deal done - but then on the Thursday I got some miles in on my road bicycle ready for the 'Shropshire Highland Challenge' event that was coming up on the Sunday.
I was treating it like it was the Tour De France! My sister asked me if I wanted a piece of her boyfriend’s Birthday cake on the Thursday and my reply was, "Would you see Lance tucking in to a bit of cake 3 days before the Tour?!" "I think not!"
On Saturday I went shopping into my local city, Hereford, just to buy some energy powder and energy bars etc in preparation. The event isn’t actually a race but named as a challenge, but there were some boys there taking it quite serious and full armies of cycling clubs from all around the Midlands.
In Barcelona I invited Sylvain Guintoli along as he does quite a bit of cycling and lives with his girlfriend in Leicester so he took up the challenge and travelled down to us early on Sunday morning.
We left home to where the event started, got signed in, stretched and then set off later than most people so we had people to catch and pass. The event was 71.5-miles, and with some big climbs in it, so we were going to have to pace ourselves a bit... or at least that was the plan.
