Hallo Belgie

So here we are. Three races into 2010, and so far I have secured a top 20 at the Severn Bridge Road Race, followed by a puncture in the Jock Wadley, and a frustrating Wally Gimber ride. But now it really begins...

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!