The first few editions of the Gieten round of the Superprestige series that I have covered (2015 , 2014 and here), used be held in the middle of November, straight after the World Cup race in Koksijde. This used to mean that after a long day in Koksijde, I would have to cover the five-six hour drive either overnight or the first half on Saturday night and the second half on Sunday morning. Plus there was the drive on Monday, all the way back to Calais.
This time around, I took a number of trains to get to Assen, which made the whole journey a lot less stressful, I could work, sleep or just relax on the train and it cost roughly the same.
The other good thing about the race was the new-ish course. It was quite similar to the previous two iterations, but slight variations made it a bit easier to follow it for us and for the spectators. And the biggest win was that the press centre was located right next to the finish line and the podium.
Next Sunday the re-christened ‘trofee’ will kick off – the new name is DVV Verzekeringen, it just rolls of the tongue. This comes at a time when I started to get used to the bpost bank trofee name, time to learn a new one.
