On Monday afternoon Josh and I set sail for Belgium, we arrived at the house in Waregem around 7pm local time. We wasted no time in filling up two thirds of the room. Jay will be over to fill his third in due course, but in the meantime he is nursing an injured calf. Tuesday was a busy day, first we had to drive to Oostende to pick up our shiny new Mercedes... Jay had managed to pull some strings, so we now have a huge Merecedes Vito to get us around for the season, complete with a Shell fuel card. I must really express my gratitude for this as it is a real bonus and will save us a lot of money. So thank you very much Jan Vanvuchelen at JetAir.
On the return from Oostende we called in at the Ikea near Gent, for some home making items... hanging shelves for my clothes rail, a washing basket, boxes, a light, some rugs/blankets... it's all really exciting stuff! Anyway, we made it home around 3pm, just in time for a late afternoon 3 hour spin. We followed some of the route for Wednesday's Dwars Door Vlaanderen/GP Stad Waregem, and quickly heeded the advice of Matt and Andy... That you don't train on cobbles! As romantic as the idea sounds, after the Oude Kwaremont, both Josh and I opted for the gutter to get up the Paterberg!! Still it was a great first ride in temperatures as high as 17c and pretty sunny too, whoever said it rains in Belgium!?
Today we have had a bit of a treat, the afore mentioned Dwars Door Vlaanderen, a UCI 1.1 pro race finished right on our door step, well about 2km away anyway! We were ambitious in our spectating plans, we wanted to see it twice, so we bombed it over to the Oude Kwaremont after my morning training ride along the Leie Kanaal. After this we intended to get back to Waregem as soon as possible to see the finish, unfortunately many others had the same idea so we ended up missing the it, but we did get a quick photo with Sean Kelly in the technical area, which was pretty cool!
The real fun of the day however, was spending the best part of 2 hours in supermarkets! I know it shouldn't be complicated, but it is! Added to which I'm having major issues using my bank cards over here right now, which definately sucks. It took four attempts to get money from an ATM in order to pay for my rent, and the only other place my card has worked was Ikea. Petrol stations and supermarkets seem not to want to know.
Ok, that'll do for now, I must go to bed! Goedenacht!
Last week, Josh, Jay and myself, along with the rest of the OneLife Development Squad made the trip up to sunny Hillingdon. It was not the most successful of days! The day started well enough, after a good warm up we were all set to mix up the race, then after barely 10 laps a crash brought down both Jay and Josh. I was all but on my own, with the rest of the Development Squad getting used to the pace, I was left to fly the Flanders flag solo. After an aggressive race it was all looking like a bunch sprint, with the Cycles Dauphin team controlling the bunch with 5 laps to go. But Phil Sykes of Sigma Sport had other ideas, with 3 to go he launched off the front dragging one other with him. With 2 to go I rode across, and on the bell lap we had a good gap and I was confident of bringing home the win. But then disaster struck, Sykes led into the final lap, and on a bend the other rider had a rear tyre blow out. His excellent handling meant he didn't go down, but it forced me to slam on the brakes and waste all my momentum. I then had a 400m chase into the head wind to get back to Skyes, as we hit the finish straight Toby Meadows, a fellow Belgian based rider, had got across and launched his sprint. As I went to react, the bunch sprint caught both of us and Brixton Cycle's Joe Skelton just snuck the win with an exceptionally fast finish. Were it not for the blow out, I'm confident I had it in the bag, alas it was not to be. The good thing was the legs are definitely coming, despite the weather continuing to hamper training. The days bad luck did not end there however, while we had a post race coffee, both Josh and Jay had their cars broken into. Luckily not much was taken, but the damage to each car was no doubt exceptionally costly.
Last time I wrote the weather forecast wasn't looking too good, and for once, they seemed to get it right. I'm sure you've noticed the mercury hasn't crept much above zero since then, and the persistent cold has brought more snow than is humorous. That said, I have taken to mountain biking to beat the snow, and despite being absolute rubbish at it, I love it! It's certainly hard work, but good training for the bike handling and upper body. So while it's not ideal, I'm getting by.
The one warm day since last time happened to be Boxing Day, so having received special dispensation from my manager to race, off to Hillingdon I went. Which turned out to be handy since I was desperate to race, and our first official race was meant to be Saturday just gone. I'm sure you can guess, it was called off! So if not for Boxing Day I'd be waiting for the 7th Feb, by then I really would have been desperate. So my last ride in orange was fairly anonymous. Pinning a number on in the middle of winter to race against guys who are competing for a £600 series prize, was quite a shock to the system. Once the main protagonists had left the bunch, I settled into the race with the new found knowledge that not turning a pedal in anger in three months has sapped all but the last dregs of speed from my legs! But, with my parents out watching I felt compelled to at least make the effort in the final, so with a couple of laps to go I got across to the chase group and out sprinted all but one of them to take 8th, not bad, but not all that great either! C'est la vie, it was only ever to be a bit of fun, and I did enjoy the race at least. And burning 1,300 calories in 70mins on Boxing Day can't be a bad thing can it!
We now have a provisional race calendar in place, so I will post up some highlights soon. Of particular note, we have gained a place in the Rás Mumhan in Ireland at Easter. Having ridden this event last year, to go back with my own team will be awesome. It is certainly going to be my first major target of 2010...
