This year the Vitamin Cottage men's pro-1-2 team added under-23 riders Peter Horn and Scott Tietzel to the lineup. Scott and Peter raced this spring in the US in VC colors. During the summer they are spending time racing and training at the Cycling Center in Belgium. Following is a report from Peter.
Racing in Belgium has been going pretty well so far at the Cycling Center. I started out racing a few UCI races, Wavre, Flèche-Hesbignonne, Romsée-Stavelot-Romsée, and Omloop Het Volk. After the first two races, my legs started coming around and I finished 25th at Romsée, which is a good, hard race in the Ardennes, and then finished in the field at Het Volk after catching the lead group, then everyone being caught by the pack. The most successful race so far has been a criterium in Eeklo I did with my teammates Steven, David, and Sean. Steven is one of our Belgian teammates, and Eeklo happens to be his hometown. There was a prime every lap, one of which I managed to get early in the race, and a couple of laps later we got Steven in a three-man break, which lasted for the rest of the race. I was in a small group behind him, so he was 3rd, I was 11th, and the other guys were both in the top 25. It was a good race in the sense that we came away with some good money in each of our pockets, especially from Steven’s primes and prize money, and we worked very well as a team.
The Cycling Center really has been a great place to live, train, and race this year. It is a good, young group of guys here, and we hope to actually get some solid results at the Top-comps and stage races (Tours of Liège and Namur) in the coming weeks. Keep racing hard and good luck to everyone this summer. Peter