Steven Cozza, check in interview, Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne Today’s stage 1 at De Panne was both good and bad for our classics crew. For the first three quarters of the stage, it was fairly mellow. One single rider went off the front and gained up to ten minutes at one point. Then we approached the first of two 38 km finishing circuits with the day’s first cobblestone stretch.

When a cobblestone road approaches, the peloton goes crazy and the stress meter goes way up. This race isn’t nicknamed the three days of “bleep hole” for nothing. There were three times when I had my brakes lock-up and was sliding out of control to where I thought I was going to die. Luckily, that never happened.

But we did have Chris Sutton crash into a ditch while trying to avoid a pile-up. And Meatball, as well as Huub, broke their machines doing the same at a very fast moment in the race. They never managed to make it back on. Will crashed as well and banged his knee pretty good, but managed to impressively hang in ’til the finish.

While all this chaos was going on at the back of the race, Magnus, Tyler and Martijn were crushing it at the front. Martijn rode well in a break for awhile before it got reeled back in just before the finish.

Since I’m writing this report, you would think I would want to talk about how I raced. Besides the fact that I felt strong but failed at racing at the front during crucial moments, I’m going to forget about today. My focus now is on tomorrow and the final day’s TT where I think I can go fast.

All in all, there were no broken bones. I think today was another great step up the ladder towards our big goals, Flanders and Roubaix. I think tomorrow’s long 228 km stage will suit us “classics boys” just fine. Check in tomorrow after stage 2 for the inside scoop.

Thanks for reading. - Cozza (pictured above during Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne)