Michelle Geoghegan was a non-finisher in Saturday's Het Nieuwsblad but not due to the pre-race illness that she feared would affect her performance.
Instead, it was a minor mechanical fault on her recently acquired bike that prevented her from repeating the impressive form of her Belgian debut 12 months ago.
Rain and wind, the staple weather of Flanders, greeted the riders in Ghent ahead of the 127km race over many of the most evocative and demanding cobbled climbs of the region.
Having switched to aluminium rimmed wheels before the start, Geoghegan was travelling comfortably in the fast moving bunch but her brake pads were unsuitable and the braking performance steadily deteriorated to unmanageable levels.
Michelle takes up the story: "I had a bit of a disaster of a day. It poured rain and there was a lot of mud and grit on the roads. I was using cork brake pads on aluminium rims and they started to become less and less effective which made me come out of the bunch which I had been sitting in no problems.
"Eventually it was like having no brakes at all. The pads weren't touching the rims, they were completely worn away. I was coming down a descent and was supposed to take a right hander but I had too much speed and went straight through scattering the people standing on the corner watching the race.
"I had to get into the team car... Total disaster.
"Anyway, I'm going to get in some good training in the next few weeks and the next big race is at the end of March."
