Author: kennettron

We had a right proper race yesterday. 11 laps with a hard, rain-slicked cobbled climb that I thoroughly enjoyed stomping up every time. As usual, I missed out on the winning break. It formed on the first two laps when I was still learning the course, though that isn’t the reason I missed out. As we headed into the final corner at the base of the climb on the second lap, I sat third wheel, which was great. Perfect spot to be since there was a smidgen of head/cross wind going up it. But the bloke in front of me almost crashed sideways into my front wheel as I tried to pass on his left, causing me to brake. If I hadn’t I would have gone into a barbed-wire fence. The braking immediately caused a gap to open up, which I was able to close, but then at the top I had to come around another guy who’d blown up. This gap was even larger than the one before. I dug hard at the top here, where the climb flattens out for a few hundred meters before gradually heading downhill, and I latched onto a small group of maybe three or four guys. One or two had been up the road and we’d just caught them.

I had a teammate with me now, Henrych, who was riding very strong, and the four of us looked like the perfect group to bridge up to the two guys off the front who’d gone on lap one. I worked on the descent and tailwind section over the next few kilometers, though I was pretty cracked from the climb and was in quite a heap of pain. A few K later, after a few guys had bridged to us, it all went to shit. Our group was about six strong now, two getting dropped another four or so bridging to take their places. I slotted in at the back after taking a pull, just as the guy at the tail end of our group let the wheel go in front of him (typical move over here to force someone else to do extra work while you take a breather) but I didn’t come around to close it for him (which is what he wanted). I yelled at him, he shook his head, deciding his legs were too cracked and that he’d instead call my bluff. We both ended up losing contact with the others in a stalemate. I had one last moment of decision as I looked back and saw the pack closing in on us, just a couple seconds behind. I could either destroy myself and close the gap up ahead, or let the pack catch us. The smart decision seemed to be to let the pack catch us since the entire move looked doomed at that point, so that’s what I did.

The peloton caught us. It did not catch the others. Instead, they dangled off the front for two kilometers, just 3 or 4 seconds up the road. A lap later they were still only 20 seconds ahead of us as guys attacked (myself included) trying to bridge up to them. But in reality they were gone, slowly riding away from us over the next few laps. Henrych crashed out of the break a few laps later. At one point early on it had looked like we’d have the breakaway stacked with two riders; now we had nothing.

My revenge was taken on the climb every single lap after that second one. I CRUSHED it so hard a two times that I actually had to sit up and coast at the top because no one was even within sight, behind or in front (the break was over a minute up the road at this point). It was futile to go alone in the wind, every time I did it just resulted in a waste of energy.

The race remained aggressive and my teammate Jake and I bridged up to one of the secondary moves that had gone up the road later, around lap five or so. Our new group contained 11 guys, fighting for 8th place since seven men were up the road in the front group. I continued to take the lead on the climb every lap and split the group each time, the last few times only Jake was able to hold my wheel. All 11 guys kept coming back together on the tailwind section, but the worn out legs showed on everyone’s faces. Jake and I discussed a plan and we decided our best option was for me to keep smashing the climb and on the last lap the two of us would go all out on the following tailwind section to stay away for 8th and 9th place. Either that, or I’d at least be able to split the group like usual, though on the last lap things are less likely to come back together since guys are less willing to work together to regain contact, everyone thinking of saving their own legs. We were out of the podium, but had a likely chance of both getting top 10.

As we came to the finish line with two laps to go everyone began sprinting wildly like it was the end of the race. Because it was. The race announcer must have said it was the finish over the loudspeaker (cutting us short by two laps). I put in a quick few pedal strokes during the last 100 meters, but it was too little too late. I finished 15th. The front seven, who continued on for the remaining two laps, finished in defeated-looking groups of one’s and two’s, broken to smithereens from the cobbled climb. If only I’d been in that lead group and used my legs at the front of the race instead of fighting for the scraps!!! AGHHHHH!!!! I’m getting sick and tired of writing stupid race reports like this. I’ve had it! From now on I won’t write anything and you can just assume I got 15th or 20th. I’ll write a race report worth reading when I get a top 5.

Doing some serious reflecting on what happened during the race…or thinking about what’s for dinner.

I know I’m sounding like a scratched CD, but I slimly missed the mark in Marke yet again.

It’s 2:07am and I can’t sleep. Lots of caffeine and left over race adrenaline are winning the battle against Tylenol PM and red wine. I’m not drowsy at all, though I should be. Today was another sloberknocker out in the city of Marke. It was fast, hot, and full of non-stop attacking. The race is still playing (agonizingly) through my mind, mixing and melding with other imaginary race scenarios, namely Univest, which is in two weeks and is another cause of my unrest.

I put in the best kind of attack and went with 1K to go and got caught with 100 meters left. There wasn’t an ounce left in me. If the race had been 100 meters shorter I could have held them off (for 3rd place since that was what we were racing for at the time), but then again if the race had been 100 meters shorter my 1km attack would have happened 100 meters sooner.

Unlike most days here in overcast ‘Pacific Northwest winter’ Belgium, today was hot. It started out in the 80’s but by mid-race it was 90, which isn’t too ridiculous, especially since I like the heat, but no one here is used to it since it’s been in the 60’s and 70’s for weeks. On top of that I had no one feeding me. I watched enviously at the other guys in the race as they grabbed bottles and cold, wet sponges every single lap. “Have I learned my lesson?” I thought. “Do I steal another bottle and get in a fight, or am I better off just suffering through it?” I ended up going for the later since I didn’t need any more enemies in the race.

Jake got in an 8 or 9-man breakaway on the second lap. I attacked hard and followed moves, eventually bridging up to him on the fifth lap with another teammate, Michael, from Scotland. He plays a mean set of bagpipes and tosses heavy logs during his rest days. And he had a full dish of haggis in his back pocket for race food, so I knew his would be a good wheel to follow in case I got hungry and/or the Lockness monster attacked us.

The breakaway swelled to well over 30 guys during the fifth or sixth lap, which was way too many. Things broke apart constantly but kept getting stitched back together, mainly since there were three or four teams each with a lot of guys in the move. The Chilean national team had somewhere between 6 and 8 guys, while one of the better Belgian teams, Deucock, had the same amount. Despite having three ASFRA Flanders guys in there (my team), we were well out-numbered. We compensated by not giving a shit. To make things interesting the race organizers had primes on every lap except the last, making 19 primes in total since we were doing 20x 6km laps.

Somewhere in there I went for a prime with 1K to go, right before a roundabout, and got a huge gap. I took the prime and stayed away for another few kilometers by myself before one other guy bridged to me. We were caught half a lap later, just like every other 259 times I attacked today, but it gave me confidence that I could stick a similar 1 km move on the final lap, assuming I was still there (and my legs too).

I continued to be one of the main aggressors, never retreating to the rear of the break, in fear that it would split up. I decided I’d risk doing too much rather than too little. Sitting in and hoping it stayed together for the final lap, or only going with one move every other lap, would be the safer, easier option, though I doubt it would have worked. Instead, Jake, Michael, and I all helped tear the break apart; with 9 or 10 laps remaining half the break was shot out the back. At one point all three of us got away to form a seven-man move. Them’s were good odds, but we got chased down since it lacked the right mix. The lead group swelled back up to 19.

On the 16th lap two guys (Chile and Deucock) got away and stuck it for 1st and 2nd. The nerve of those scallywags! A handful of us tried an organized chase but things kept disintegrating when the two teams with teammates up the road would attack us on the headwind section and the short hill after it to stop our progress. With two laps to go it looked doomed; the two guys off the front had over a minute so the motto became “attack, attack, attack,” instead of “attack, attack, pull, attack” like it was before.

Despite the constant attacking, 17 of us were all together coming into the final two kilometers. I decided to grow a pair and go for the final spot on the podium with my 1K to go move. All or nothing. I knew everyone was extremely cracked from the attrition and dehydrated from the heat, so I figured if I got any decent gap at all they’d give up and just look at each other until the 250-meter marker. That would have been the case and is almost always the case in the races over here because everyone is so F’ed at the end, but the damn Chilean team still had 4 guys left. So they blew themselves up in a super fast lead-out and caught me to win the sprint for 3rd (they also took 2nd with one of their guys up the road and they won every prime except the one I did, which meant they took home about 700 euros). I was a bit devastated. I was too hot and tired to be that devastated though. At least it wasn’t for 1st; that would have been much harder to swallow. But still, I want to take home some damn flowers and a trophy!!!!

I crumpled to the sidewalk after the finish line, coming in 16th since almost everyone in the break passed me after the Chileans drug them to the line. A small group of concerned people crowded around as I lay on the pavement. They gave me a can of iced tea while I regained myself from near death.

After changing into our street clothes at the car, Jake, Evgeney, and I collected our money from the bar. I spotted a large, unguarded tray of sandwiches for the officials sitting in a corner and made a quick decision. I grabbed one and ate half of it before wondering what kind of filling it contained. At first taste (and texture) I suspected it was salmon locks. But on further inspection I realized that it was raw hamburger meat. This proved to cause some unrest in my stomach about 20 minutes later. Note to self: raw hamburger + heat exhaustion = still worth it. Time to sleep. My eyes grow heavy at last.

Jake changing in a patch of stinging nettles after the race.

Evgeney

Warning, this next photo contains full female frontal nudity…

…and by that I mean the exact opposite.

This one’s for all the ladies out there. Apparently I put on a pair of pants in the exact same position that I ride a bike.

What have I created!?!?!?!?! It’s a monster!!!!! A monster I say!!!

Speculoos paste + speculoos cookies= BIGGUNS x1000!!!

But before we get into that I’m gonna make you read a quick and to the point blurb about yesterday’s stupid race. Nothing special about it. I even told myself it wasn’t worthy of a blog post. But in the end I had to write something to flesh out my thoughts about it, which is one of the main reasons I like to write–to learn and think. Garrison Keillor once said, “You yourself don’t know what you really think until you write about it.” Unfortunately I heard him say this during a TV interview, not on paper, so I’m not sure if he really meant it. Anyways:

Oudenburg Interclub. 170km, 13x13km laps. 195 starters.

Lap 1: I did a sidewalk attack during the neutral roll out and went from the back to the front. We did another 10 minutes of easy neutralized riding, took a pee break once we were out of town, and then immediately began attacking without any signal from anyone. I slowly drifted backwards to avoid wasting energy.

Lap2: I sat in mid pack.

Lap3: More sitting in. I was wondering when the race was going to get hard. I was told it would be a bunch finish or a later move, so I avoided trying to get in a break.

Lap 4: Unusually mild wind meant the flat course would be pretty chill.

Lap5: Someone drifting backwards through the pack after an attack caused a chain reaction of brake-grabbing. I slowed in time but the guy behind me didn’t, ran into me, then crashed into a parked van. A few minutes later in an unrelated event, two guys decided their argument couldn’t be solved with words so they dismounted their bikes at the side of the road and duked it out 1920’s boxing style.

Lap 6: The breakaway, finally succeeding midway into lap 5, was now 1:15 up the road. I moved up in the pack. The mentality that I got from everyone was that the break would be caught by the peloton or bridged up to by a later move.

Lap 7: I began attacking in between bouts of fake Quickstep pulling on the front. They’d drill it, blow up, the race would begin shattering as the aggressors tried getting away, nothing would stick for long, then Quickstep would come back to the front just before things blew to shreds for good (too bad). Someone ran over a pretty girl on the sidewalk, going 50+ km/hr. The peloton ooed, awed, and cringed.

Lap 8: I ate a waffle and continued attacking and following moves. My legs felt better than ever.

Lap 9: I began a feud with rider #133: I did a monster pull and bridged solo across to a split up the road, went straight by them when they sat up, bridged across to another split but didn’t close the gap completely and instead elbowed for the guy who’d latched onto my wheel from the last split to come around and finish it off. He pulled through for one second, blew up, and elbowed for me to come back around for the final pull. I yelled at him, he yelled back, I shook my fist, he shook his, and we argued until another group came up behind to stitch the gap up for us. We both spent the next half lap off the front trying to get away in various moves, each of us trying to screw each other over when we could. Show no mercy.

Lap 10: I got a bottle thrown directly into my head by someone else during a feed zone. Accident? Probably not but I have no clue why I deserved it and wasn’t quite sure who done it. I sought revenge. And attacked.

Lap 11: Still attacking. Going with everything now. One of these moves is going to work! Fake Quickstep was blown to shreds; the gap to the break was under a minute. I followed a long string of moves except the ONE move that got away (I know, the story of everyone’s life). A teammate of mine had followed an attack so as other guys tried to bridge the small gap, I sat on to kill it or get a free tow. I did not get a free tow, and decided to be a good teammate and not bridge up there myself and drag others across. My teammate and the others he was with dangled off the front for a few minutes before forming a working unit and gradually riding away from us, reaching the breakaway a lap later, and becoming the large winning move.

Lap 12: I stayed somewhat close to the front but missed a few secondary moves that went up the road. I didn’t care that much since we were racing for 30th by that point.

Lap 13: I rolled through the finish line in the bunch, avoiding being a douche and sprinting for 50th. Race over. This was the first race over here that I’ve used my powertap wheel, so despite not getting a decent result I at least had some good data to look at when I got home. I spent a total of 37 minutes between 470 and 1200 watts in my “supra max zone,” according to poweragent.

After the race while waiting in the parking lot: I drank a liter of orange soda, ate a can of rice pudding, and felt ready to do another race. Magical legs today but no luck. Just have to continue throwing it out there and one of these times a fish will chew…or however that saying goes.

THE DREAM CREATION!!!

700 grams of speculoos paste. 1 kilo of speculoos cookies. Jake, Justin, and I ate all of it this afternoon and evening. (Speculoos cookies are basically ginger snaps and the paste is pulverized cookies with extra oil, made into a peanut butter type spread)

Let the madness begin.

Things went downhill fast.

Vanilla ice cream mixed with crushed speculoos cookies and fried speculoos paste.

Bigguns only do downhill races now!

Adversity is the spice of life, and as always things taste pretty good around here. Yesterday was a real sloberknocker of a race but of course that wouldn’t be enough. We needed more to overcome than a hard race. To start off with, the car was out of gas and since it was Sunday, all the gas stations were closed. Evgeney, Justin, Jake and I unloaded our packed bags and shed our street clothes for our race gear and mounted the bikes under cloudy, windy, gray skies. It wasn’t a long ride to the race, but every kilometer counts and usually by the time the last two laps of a race come around, I need every ounce of energy.

We got lost on the way there but luckily a racer on a training ride took us the last few kilometers and saved us from yelling at each other for the next half hour. When we got to the race sign in, the officials wouldn’t let Evgeney race for some reason. One man down already, three out of four left.

We stashed our bags and spare clothes in another teammate’s car, wolfed down a few more waffles and cut in line near the front of the race (at least I did). One of the officials made me go further back but I snuck up the side when he wasn’t looking. Muahahaha! So did 70 other people.

The gun went off and right on queue the clouds unleashed everything at us. Complete, dark, soaking misery for the next two hours and 45 minutes. Grit in the eyes, ears, mouth, nose, and ass crack. Blinding muddy spray and 120 scared cyclists all jamming on malfunctioning brakes before every corner, then sprinting full on out of them. Just what I’m here for! I knew it would be a matter of attrition so I held back on the attacks for the most part. By lap two I think we’d lost a third of the field already.

The course was 14 laps of an 8-kilometer course, about 30 corners per lap. Most of it seemed like it was downhill, the exception being one sharp 20% kicker a half K before the finish line. I’d double checked my bike the night before, tightening bolts and putting on a fresh tire, making sure I’d be mechanical free today, which of course meant the opposite would happen. My new shifter immediately came loose under the large pressure put on it going up the wall. It spent the entire race just dangling to the side; I’d straighten it every once in a while only for it to fall back to the side. By lap two or three I’d hit a large pothole and broken a spoke in my rear wheel, not realizing it until the race was over. You know that feeling when your legs seem sluggish, almost like you have a slow leak or a rubbing wheel—and you keep looking back at your rear brake calipers to see if your wheel is out of true or you keep bouncing up and down to see if your wheel is flat, but in reality it’s just your legs that are flat? Well I had that feeling in my legs, plus I actually did have a wheel dragging heavily against my brakes. Double bad combo. An excuse, but a good one. A couple people commented after the race that they’d seen it. Somehow they failed to mention this during the race to let me know I should loosen my brakes.

I saw Justin on the side of the race a few laps later. Down to just two of us. The rain had let up a little but would come back strong again later.

The details of most of the race are blurred. Who knows what really happened during most of the race? Who cares? All that you need to know is that the pain hurt badly but hurting others badly felt good. Gaps would open up over the top of the climb that I’d have to close, then more gaps would open up on the back side of the course on the false flat descent when guys would lose their nerve in the rain. Everyone behind would sit on them while they flailed and failed to close their gap. We’d wait till they’d blow up, then sprint by them and halfway shoulder them into the gutter and curse at them for fucking up. I started throwing in some attacks as well.

With five laps to go Jake’s brakes gave out completely. He was three bikes ahead of me about to round a sharp corner when I saw him unclip, drag his foot on the ground to slow down and go smashing into a brick building. The guy behind him cursed him for opening up a gap. Three down, one of us left.

I spent way too much of the race too far back, getting to the front for some aggression for a while but always drifting back shortly afterwards. I’d lost confidence from my shifter going loose and my legs feeling sluggish (the broken wheel) so I’d been content to sit farther back than I should have. Instead of being top 15 I was generally 30-40 guys back. On small, technical, wet roads like these, 40 guys back is too far. I’d covered a lot of splits that looked dangerous and used too much energy in the process, where if I’d been further up front I could have conserved more. Same old story as always. POSITIONING KENNETT!!! MOVE UP!

Still feeling OK by lap 10 or 11 and making the front splits when they occurred, I made my way to the head of the pack before one of the more technical sections, readying for someone to attack. We came through a part of the course where there’d been a crash the lap prior. We rode even more cautiously as we passed through a mysterious, thick white cloud of smoke. I held my breath.

A lap later during the same section, two fire trucks blocked most of the tiny road. Someone’s house had caught on fire. The rain would have put it out though. Despite the fire, the race was not delayed. The firemen waited for us to pass.

With two laps to go I realized a couple large groups had gotten away on the climb and the following descent and had joined together. It was do or die now, with only fifty or sixty guys left in the race and most of them too dead to chase. I followed a series of hard moves and eventually got away with four other guys still willing to put the hurt on for just a little longer. I took a big pull on the slipper tar- and pothole-filled descent before the steap climb. An Isorex Team guy took a monster pull up and over the climb and we got a glimpse of the 17 guys up the road.

One and a half to go.

Catfish.

Unfortunately the climb had dropped everyone else and it was just he and I now with one lap to go. I had nothing left and could barely pull through. We got to within five or six seconds of the leaders but couldn’t close it down the rest of the way before we got to the climb and took 18th and 19th. I was so dead I almost didn’t care. It’s always disappointing to lose a race to guys who you know you’re stronger than, but aggressive positioning and attentiveness in the pack are equally important as strong legs and aggression off the front.

PART II

This second part of the day runs into the following day. I’ll keep it short though. This is a bullet point presentation of what happened:

-Jake and Justin left before the race was over, leaving me to ride home in the headwind alone
-I wandered around looking for them
-I got sidetracked and chatted with some other racers and teammates
-I collected 10 euros for my 19th place and returned my race number for an additional 5 euros
-I did NOT buy a hot dog despite my yearning for one
-I saw that the car I’d stashed my bag in was gone because the guy who owned it only lasted a few laps of the race
-I assumed Jake and Justin had taken my bag home
-I rode home
-I took a wrong turn or two and did 55 kilometers home instead of 35.
-I got home in the late evening after riding and racing for a little under 6.5 hours
-I consumed a liter and a half of orange soda, two chocolate puddings, a tapioca pudding, and then real food
-I found out the guy (who’s car we’d used to stash our bags in) had left the bags at the bar (race HQ) and had told Justin. Justin had yelled at me from the crowd as I passed by the start/finish line with 5 laps to go in the race, “bag’s in the bar!” and he and Jake left my bag there.
-There is no possible way I could have heard this.
-Confusion and anger ensued as I tried to solve the problem
– Shortly after I decided to not care

The following day:
-Jake and I rode back to the race HQ bar (called Cafe Flintstones) get my bag
-We rode to the adjacent larger city (Aalst) to go to the world’s largest bike shop (Van Eyck).
-I got new shift cables and housing
-We found out where a Colruyt food market was (6 kilometers away) and rode there
-We ate a lot of samples and left
-We decided to go back to the bike shop for cheap bike computers
-We started the ride home
-We stopped in at another grocery store to eat more samples
-We got home, finishing our day-long 4-hour ride and adventure

Sausage and chips samples at Colruyt

As always, the samples are left unguarded over here…resulting in quick, stealthy gluttony.

Jake got greedy eventually and went for a full-sized, still cooking, scalding on the outside, cold on the inside sausages. When “Colruyting” at a grocery store, one must move quickly from tray to tray, depleting the resources in one swift blow before moving on to the next.

My luck in the last two kermesses hasn’t been the best. Flat tire in the one last week before Wervik (on lap 3) and a broken shifter in the other one yesterday (also on lap 3). I managed to hang on for a lap of yesterday’s race after the shifter broke by spinning at 140rpm for while stuck in the 53×21. Not the best gear for a flat race, but I got to see what it’s like to pedal junior gears in a grown man’s race. After the disappointing race and the stressful drive to get there due to a massive amount of road work, Jake and I returned home to more stress. The “Greek”, the 40 something year old from South Africa and is only Greek because his parents are Greek, is downright insane. Here’s a quick paraphrased quote I took from him last week:

Michael (AKA The Greek): “You want to know how I know when the FBI is following me?”
Me: “Oh my God yes.”
Michael: “It’s when the blacks, the gangs, the mexicans the asians, the chinese–it’s when they aren’t following me. That’s when the whites are following me. It’s so easy to decode it’s a joke. The whites, the FBI, they track you with credit cards and cell phones and the internet. These things are so easy it’s a joke. Once you get a few pieces of the puzzle you can solve it. Human beings are tribal. I’m not paranoid. I can tell when someone is following me. When the mexicans, the chinese are following me they act really giddy and laugh a lot like in the show Beavis and Butthead, you know heheheheh. It’s very simple. But chip away at Whitey…” It went on for a long time.

10 minutes later in part of another conversation:

Michael: “I’m very, very fast. I’m getting very fit. You know how I know this? My pulse is down to 50.”
Justin: “Let’s try to get it down to zero.”
Michael: “I’m very fast you know. I could beat you in a sprint. You want to go out and do a sprint now? hahaha”

He later exclaimed that the MTV interview on Beyonce we watched was all scripted material that she and they stole from him. “Information” that took him 29 years to think up. “It’s all stolen from me. I don’t know how they got it, but it’s word for word all my work.” (Beyonce talking about her life and her recent albums).

Despite knowing he’s not very smart he believes he’s a genuine genius, he believes he’s faster than any professional cyclist, believes that he has the ability to play the stock market if he wanted to and make millions of dollars, and he believes the entire world is out to get him.

Michael confronted me with a grim face as we came in and sat down in the living room. He accused me of poisoning his food last night because he felt sick this morning. Poisoning his food. Yeah. I told him to shut up and fuck off because I wasn’t in the mood for it. But he wasn’t his normal, goofy self this time. He had anger in his stomach (and the poison I’d used on him of course) and he wanted a fight. We spent the next five minutes arguing until it escalated into a shouting match, him telling me if I told him to shut up one more time, “just see what happens. You tell me to shut up one more time and we’ll have a fight.” I told him to shut up of course. Two more times.

Now you have to understand that I didn’t necessarily want to get in a fist fight with him, duh. For one, he has genuine crazy person strength. I’m not trying to be crude or anything, but that is NOT a myth. He’s also 6’5″ and outweighs me by about 40-50 pounds, though I have quite a bit more rage on my side, especially after my shifter breaking in the race. But Michael being insane changes things. What would happen after the fight for example, if there was one,–that would be the worrisome part. If a normal person thought I’d sabotaged them in some way and we’d fought, we’d be angry at each other for the next month. That’s it. With a crazy person, you have no idea what they’re going to do next. They could sneak into your room and stab you in the forehead with a spoon. They could get back at you by taking a shit in the fridge, accidentally shitting on their own loaf of bread, later forgetting that they did it, and then blame you. They could secretly steal tiny portions of your toothpaste until it finally runs out in three months without you knowing they were doing it. There’s no end to the madness a mad person can come up with!

Anyways, he was more bark than bight and he ended up sitting down on the couch next to me to watch some boring TV. Cortisol levels fell.

Wervik

Over here the hardest race an amateur can compete in is called an interclub. They’re pretty much like a mini classics type race, between 160 and 200 kilometers and with an equal amount of participants. I rode with the ASFRA Flanders team in my first interclub yesterday and got a taste of what a Euro pro race might feel like (except probably a lot slower).

In Belgium, cycling is a big deal obviously. Even at the weekday kermess, a big effort goes into making it a spectacle. Wervik was much bigger, with the center of attention around a large stage in the middle of the city to call up the riders for team presentations. There were dozens of motorcycles, police vehicles, support cars and photographers crowding downtown and buzzing around in the race, all there to make a day of pain and suffering possible for us.

The race was 170 km with one and a half large laps of a circuit heading out of town, a lollypop section to get us out to a climbing circuit that we did twice, then back into the city of Wervik where we did 3X14km laps to the finish. I recognized a few of the teams from the kermesses, though now (like our team) they brought their best riders. There were also a lot more continental teams than the average kermess has. My prediction: Pain, with a chance of rain…

All night long before the race, thunder and lightning had cracked and boomed through the darkness and flooded the roads. Jake and I woke to more thunder and lightning in the morning, the storm continuing to dump inches of rainwater. It cleared up by race time and astonishingly held off all day long, but made the cobbled climbs wet.

The climbing circuit contained five climbs in total (two of which we did twice), each with pitches between 15 and 20%. They were all short enough though, each well under five minutes. The most famous one being the cobbled Kemmelberg, which is used in the northern classic Gent-Wevelgem.

Anyways, onto the race: an old man with a hand cannon for a start pistol eagerly fired into the air, everyone’s eardrums rang for the next minute as we fought for position behind the lead car during the neutral roll out. I had cut to the front to line up and got a choice spot sitting just to the left of the lead car for the first couple kilometers until I finally began drifting back into the thick of things. I didn’t know there’d be such a long neutral section; we did two laps through the cobbled streets of the city, and I was thankful for it since I hadn’t gotten a warm up. I almost crashed twice when I got my front wheel lodged in a seem along the side of the road between the cobbles and the gutter. Others weren’t so lucky, judging by the sounds of metal, carbon, bodies, cobbles, and cement colliding.

After we’d done enough miles of neutral to throw me off on distance (do neutral miles count as total miles today?), the race got underway (not that the mileage thing mattered much since my borrowed bike computer only works in miles and I wrote all the climbs down in kilometers on my top tube). Basically, what I’d been told was to just stay at the front because all the roads were small. Easier said than done of course, since there were around 200 of us and Belgians are much more aggressive about positioning than an American peloton.

I held my own though and survived the heavy cross/tail winds of the opening 60 kilometers. Already the pack had been shred behind me, with gaps forming in the cross wind and more gaps from the many crashes. The first crash I saw happened when the guy in front of me took a corner too hot and went over the bars off the side of the road. A chorus of laughter broke the silence of the riders. No sympathy here. Later, during the worst cross wind section I caught a bad lip in the pavement along the very far right edge of the road and almost went down hard at 32 miles an hour. The guy behind me was furious, yelling at me in Flemish for my mistake—like I can control when a random crack shows up and my front tire happens to find just the wrong spot to fit in. His yelling spurred a moment of rage in me and I chopped 40 guys in the next corner. You have to race angry over here.

My legs felt good today, but I’d limited myself to only three attacks during these opening 60 kilometers, because at kilometer 70 we hit the first serious climb, the Monteberg, followed a kilometer later by the Kemmelberg. Then there’d be six kilometers before the next climb, the Rodeberg, then another six more kilometers and we’d tackle the Monteberg/Kemmelberg double again. The race would be decided within these 20 kilometers.

Not knowing the course or what kilometer we were at, I took some precautionary action and got to the very front when I thought we were getting close to the first climb. I held a great spot up there in the first or second row for three or four kilometers, waiting for a giant hill to poke its head around the next bend. I got swarmed a bit right before we got to it and I climbed it in about 30th position. This climb, the Monteberg, was the easiest of the climbs. It’s basically just a warm up for the Kemmelberg, which is the hardest. We came to the top of the Monteberg and rode along the top where it’s flat for about a minute, then plummeted quickly down a short, winding descent before the road takes a 180 degree turn up the cobbled steeps of the Kemmel. Just before the descent, though, I got completely swarmed by everyone who knew what was coming up and before we began the descent I’d lost my spot and was sitting 60th or 70th wheel. Shit. I knew this was bad news as we descended, but there was no time to move up. 30 seconds later and we were jamming our breaks on as we bunched up around the tight corner, flipped to our small rings, and went up by the 20% cobbled Kemmelberg beast

I wasted no time once we got on it and smashed the pedals hard, harder than anyone around me and I tore by thirty or forty guys before the climb was finished. The lower slopes of it were giant, slick cobbles (from the rain). I put in quite a dig here. It flattened out a bit, and then the gradient went back up for the final 80 meters before the road narrowed and turned to cement. I was 100% maxed out by the top, cresting the climb about 15th or 20th. It was flat for another 20 seconds before heading down hill. I was the last to make it over in the front group.

The descent goes along a narrow bike path with a sharp, wet, mossy corner that caused a lot of crashes, even when going slow. A crash split the front group up and a five second gap formed by the bottom of the descent with 10 guys getting away. After the short down hill the road makes another 90 degree turn and begins a crosswind rolling section with a lot of turns. I couldn’t do any work for the next couple kilometers, I just barely managed to hold the wheel in front of me as I attempted to breath. I’d almost recover, then we’d hit a series of 90 degree corners, cobbles, or have to sprint to close a gap. I was deep in the red from the effort I’d put in on the climb.

Over the next six kilometers our group swelled from five to sixty while the lead group gained time. They had almost a minute by the time we went up the Kemmelberg again. But before that we went up the Rodeberg, a non-cobbled climb with three steep pitches. It wasn’t that hard since our defeated group had lost hope in catching the leaders.

The next time up the Monte and Kemmelbergs I made a similar mistake and got swarmed along the flat section at the top of the Monte, right before the 30 second-descent, and entered the base of the Kemmelberg too far back. It didn’t matter though, since I knew I could reach the front if I did another full on effort. I just had to get around all these weaving wimps first! I yelled at people to move as their legs blew up on the giant cobbles. For living in a place with cobbles and rain, a lot of the Belgians sure seem pretty bad at riding over both. I hopped off the cobbles to the side of the road onto the dirt to pass people, then got stuck behind another slow guy. I yelled at him to move, he began swerving to the left, got out of the way, but came back to the right just as I was beginning to pass him and unintentionally forced me further off the road down into a ditch. I unclipped. I got back onto the cobbles. I tried starting, failed to clip in. I had to stop, tried again, came off. Tried again and finally got clipped in. Thank the bike gods for my 11×28 and my decision to use it just in case something like this happened!

Unfortunately the entire group had passed me at this point. I was at the back. I hammered to regain position but it was too late. The group split again on the climb and the descent, where another couple crashes further broke things up.

I worked hard at the front to get things stitched back together. I had four teammates left in the race, three of which were willing to do work. The gap to the group of 30 up ahead of us, which was still in the hunt for at least the top 15, was barely up the road from us at around 30 seconds. It was plausible that we could close the gap, but unlikely since most of the group was sitting on. I was willing to do more than my share of the work since we weren’t even competing for the top 10 anymore.

A split occurred when someone let a wheel go out of laziness. Eight riders got up the road. I put in a big effort and closed it down once the rest of the group had given up. I got up to five of the riders just in time once we turned a corner and the tailwind turned to cross. Three were still just up the road, two of which were my teammates. I went solo again a few minutes later. One guy and then another got up to me shortly after. The three of us buried ourselves to get up to the three up the road. If we could join up with them we had a legitimate shot at catching the large group up ahead by latching onto the caravan behind them. We were tantalizingly close, hovering at five or six seconds before my team car passed me, quickly went by, then sheltered my two teammates and their friend from the crosswind. Soon their gap was up to 15 seconds and rising.

I was just finishing up a long pull up a slight riser into a head/crosswind section when the two guys I’d been riding with sprinted by my onto the bumper of one of their team cars as it came by. The guy right behind me had been holding onto my seat post, a common tactic over here to help things go more smoothly in hard crosswind sections, then gave a yank backwards as he and the other guy came around me and sprinted onto the car. I screamed at them to wait but there was nothing I could do. My legs were dead from the pull and even though they were just a few bike lengths up ahead of me, once they were on that car bumper it was game over for me, left for dead in no man’s land. I later learned that the car towed them all the way up to my two teammates and the other guy, but that they didn’t work at all and ruined the chances of my teammates getting back onto the group of 30 up ahead.

I stewed in anger until four guys caught me. We all worked evenly and came through the finish line banner with 3×14 km laps remaining. Thankfully they cut us and everyone but the lead group short by one lap, ending a long, frustrating, and exciting day just shy of 100 miles. I took 2nd in my group’s sprint and 41st in the race. Very frustrating. This race was all about positioning. I could have guaranteed myself a top 10 had I been better placed heading up the Kemmelberg that first time. Live and learn. Positioning in these things requires constant attentiveness and local knowledge, the first of which I’m lacking (though improving) and the second I have none of.

Jake and I the day before on an easy spin.

Morning of the race.

Then the race happened. I only have pictures of everyone afterwards. I’m gonna guess on the names.

Jurgen I think

Sven?

Jurgen also, most likely.

Pieter

This guy

Van den Broek

And Jake.

After the race we rode back in the stuffy van with the windows shut and the AC off, everyone dripping with sweat because the Euros didn’t want to catch a cold from a drafty window.

Lessines, Belgium:

Today’s race (Thursday) took place in the Wallonie region of Flanders. A mere 21 miles south of us here in East Flanders, Wallonie is a mystically strange land populated by the French. The breeze blows a refreshing air of self-importance, reminding me of home.

Gone are the waffles and chocolates of Flanders, in their place are baguettes and cheese. The steroid cows as well as their sturdy counterparts, the Belgian draft horses, were nowhere to be seen. More flamboyant, snooty livestock lined the sides of the road as we drove to the race. Key word in that sentence was “drove.” As in I didn’t ride there on my bike.

This was the first race I didn’t ride to and I think it made a big difference. We got there late, and since we’d driven there was no warm up. This was not a good thing, but it ended up not affecting my race. I lined up near the front of another large field. There’s rarely fewer than 100 guys at one of these races and today was no exception. I brought an extra water bottle in my back pocket because it was real hot and muggy. No chance of a cold, rainy race today. None at all.

It began pouring a lap into the race. The air temperature was still warm though, and for a couple laps the spray coming up off the hot pavement was almost bath temperature. A huge thunder and lighting storm had rolled through right above town with lightning striking and thunder booming one second later. It was close and very loud. The rain was the heaviest I’ve ever raced in. It was only mid day but it got so dark I had to take my sunglasses off. The danger of the lightning would have surely seen this race canceled in the States.

But before all hell broke loose in the heavens above, I’d already gotten into a large breakaway that formed before the first lap had finished. There were roughly 15-20 of us in the break and after a couple laps of hard pulls I figured we were away for good.

With so many in the break, and a few guys with multiple teammates, the cohesion was never very good. It kept splitting up with riders missing pulls and letting gaps open. I did more than my fair share of the work as half the guys just sat on the back. I just wanted the chance to at least stay away in the lead group for once. I probably wanted it too badly.

I made every split and was part of every damn attack for the next nine of the 13 laps in total. The group continued to whittle down, the storm above us booming off and on, letting up for a lap, and then hurling everything at us: gusting wind, torrential rain, HUGE chunks of hail. At one point the rain came down so hard it was impossible to see more than 20 or 30 feet in front of us. I gave a holler of excitement and attacked up a hill into the darkness when the rain came down the hardest. High on adrenaline and coffee, I realized that this is what racing is all about. Suffering off the front in miserable conditions for hours on end, and attacking your balls off.

We were down to around seven or eight riders with five laps to go when the yellow jersey leader of the Belgian kermess series, one of the Lotto development riders, bridged to us, which meant the pack was not far behind.

With three and a half laps to go I started seeing new riders in our group. First just one or two. Then more and more over the next few minutes as the peloton caught us.

We were caught at last. Luckily there were only 30 guys left in the race so I still had a chance. Riding in the break all day and finally getting caught is one of the more demoralizing things in bike racing. You feel pretty hopeless sometimes, having put all your effort into staying away. When you get caught by all the comparatively “fresh” riders, it’s hard to keep your head strong.

I stayed positive though and continued chasing down moves over the next couple kilometers, finally bridging up to two guys right before the windiest and hardest part of the course. The three of us drilled it in the crosswind, past the finish line carnival, and caught the final two guys in front of us, making a strong and motivated group of five.

A lap later we were still working well together and I felt confident we’d stay away. Our gap was large and three of the riders in our group we very motivated and seemed pretty fresh. I tried to pull through weakly and skip turns since I’d done so much earlier in the day.

1.5 laps to go and one of the Lotto guys in our group flatted. This meant that team, which had three guys left in the race, would start attacking again from the pack. With one lap to go we got caught by a small group of five, with one Lotto guy of course. Shortly afterwards three guys managed to get away. The rest of us looked at each other. Two more guys got away after some attacking, the teammate of one sitting on the remnants of us. I was furious but there was nothing I could do by myself and had to resort to swapping pulls with one other guy. The teammate of the guy up the road sat on for the next half lap and the fourth guy in our group sat on for its entirety, getting dropped, catching back on, sitting on us, getting dropped again, etc.

With only a few kilometers remaining, it was obvious the winning move was gone for good.

I screwed up at the finish and ended up on the front with 600 meters to go. Should have attacked. The guy who’d been sitting on, who had been dropped a few kilometers earlier, caught us by surprise as we sat up for the finish, and he blew by us. The guy with the teammate up the road went next. I came within a foot of catching him but needed another couple meters of race to do it, coming in at 8th place in my 8th race here. My best result by far and also the most frustrating, seeing that it could have been me on the podium today if things had gone slightly differently. I went with almost every move, every split, attacked repeatedly, had the legs to continue to do so, but missed the winning move. One of the Lotto guys won. I stood in the pissing rain and spat the most venomous curse words I knew and ground my teeth for the next fifteen minutes. I don’t know enough curse words.

Rollin’ in style

How much water got in my frame today?

…this much.

Jake after the race

I wasn’t happy

Now I was happy–it doesn’t take much: Belgian Frites in a cone with ketchup and mayo.

Carnival rides on the finishing straight.

I had to think twice about this, but decided it would NOT be pro.

Curry lentils with potatoes, onions, and turnip. Or maybe this was the result of dinner…

AKA Slobber-knocker. AKA Suffer fest. AKA holy shit balls. AKA Gaaaaaaad Damn!!

Yesterday’s accumulated mileage to/from and including the race totaled somewhere between 140 and 147. Justin, Jake, and I set off to the town of Lennink in the wee early morning hour of 12:15pm for what Justin had described as a “spot on lumpy one.” We lazily made our way past the never-ending fields of corn, onion, turnip, and potato, weaved through the grassy green pastures of friendly steroid cows, through tiny cobbled villages–each marked from afar by a church steeple, we rolled easily, saving our legs for the race as we continued through the country side of old wind mills and dilapidated barns, up and over quiet rolling roads and finally onto the “busy” highway for another 30 km. Despite our slow pace and the pleasant ride, Jake kept groaning, “This is going to be a long day.” And it was.

A few more days like this and I’ll be so skinny my torso will be ribbed for her pleasure.

The race featured 117 kilometers of steep, undulating terrain with two main climbs, one at the start/finish that started out as a long, 450 meter drag going past the finish line, flattened out a bit, turned seven, tight, cobbled corners at the top and then began a short descent. The next climb, roughly 10 minutes later started right at the base of a downhill, cobbled 90-degree corner, then shot up at 20% for 150 meters before flattening out to 6-9% for the next minute with a KOM sprint near the top. The rest of the course was up and down with lots of turns. 10 laps, though I had thought it was 13. There were a lot of things I thought about the race that were wrong. Like the early move working…like it did the day before.

I attacked off the com car accidentally 1 minute into the race. After a short neutralized section (a rare occurrence here) I held my speed following the lead car on the first descent, it took off and dropped me, but as I looked back I saw that I already had a sizable gap. Damn it. I wasn’t going to do this today! The move would go early, but I wanted to follow moves today and save myself. The course was hard enough as it was without throwing in the first attack of the day move. Solo. Too late though.

Three guys bridged to me, I dropped two of them on the steep climb since the peloton was only 20 seconds behind. I easily took the KOM at the top. One of the dropped guys caught back on to me and the other rider to make our group three. 10 minutes later at the other end of the course I took the sprint prime. I drilled it hard the next lap and took the next KOM and then the next sprint prime as well. Now I’d been off the front for two laps doing the majority of the work while one guy mainly sat on and the other took pulls with me. I was still feeling super strong, so when a large group bridged up to us I continued to pull through. I took 2nd on the next KOM then won the next sprint prime at the finish line. Three laps down. Still feeling strong.

Our group, now slightly smaller at around 16 guys after a few had been dropped, was still working well together for the most part. Gaps would form and we’d yell at each other to close them, a few times resulting in flying fists, but it mainly stayed together. I didn’t contest the next KOM as I was too far back, then I made a dumb tactical mistake and took 2nd in the next sprint prime when I should have won it. Four laps done.

Our group disintegrated at that sprint prime and four of us took off by ourselves. We were caught, I attacked, was caught, went with another group, was caught. This continued happening for the next lap and a half until our group had pretty much shattered itself and lost most of its motivation. The eight or nine of us still left were caught by the small bit of peloton that remained. Five and a half laps done.

A move went pretty much right when the peloton caught us. I was NOT going to be left out, especially since this was the counter move and would surely work. After being in the pack for 20 seconds, I bridged to a dangler off the front, then worked with him for the next kilometer and a half uphill headwind drag to get to the eight or nine-man group up the road. He and I KILLED ourselves to do this. We made it. Once we got there it began splitting up, someone would stitch it back together, then it would split again. It didn’t settle down until we got to the KOM climb, where it immediately blew up again. I maintained contact and came into the start finish with the remaining group. Somehow I found myself attacking on the top part of the twisting climb again after we went by the finish line. Things came together again and half a lap later of our group attacking itself we were on the KOM climb again. This time we were caught by the peloton. I couldn’t believe it. This was supposed to be the move! WTF? How could none of these moves have worked?? How is there still a peloton anyways?

With three laps to go I realized I was in a HUGE amount of trouble. All the attacking had destroyed my glycogen stores and my legs were absolutely shot. The third to last time up the KOM climb I barely made it in (one of) the front groups–it came back together at the base though. At this point in the race I began wishing I hadn’t ridden to and from the race yesterday. I also began wishing I hadn’t ridden 35 miles before this race because now I had 85 miles in my legs and everyone else only had 50. Too late for those negative thoughts though. I pushed them aside and took another chug of grenadine syrup from my flask (the only form of high fructose corn syrup here). I needed all the mental strength I possessed to make it up the KOM climb two more times in the heat. Well, either willpower or water, and since there would be no water for me, I was left to work solely with my head. It’s a rarity that you get dropped from not being able to hold the wheel any longer. Usually you can hold it for at least another two seconds, three seconds, 10 seconds, who knows maybe if you’d only held it for another 11 seconds you wouldn’t have gotten dropped at all. Bike racing is pain, and pain is all in your head.

Now that I was no longer one of the strongest guys this was going to hurt. Being the strongest and winning is less of a feat that being the weakest and not getting last.

I decided to sit in the pack for the final two laps without closing any gaps and without taking any pulls. This is what saved me in the end. I barley made it, but I managed a 1K solo move at the finish (at first an accident when someone didn’t hold my wheel) and took I took 1st in my group at the finish (wow, big deal since we were like the fifth and last group on the road at that point). I came in 39th, completely shattered. I had no energy left at all, so much so that I was barely out of breath after the uphill sprint, even though I’d been going all out for 90 seconds straight. No glycogen. My legs were just barely turning over.

After the race I had a number of people come congratulate me for riding so strongly, which I believe is saying quite a bit for over here. One of them assumed I’d finished ahead of him in the top 5 or 10 at least. I told him I was at best 40th. He was confused at first. “Huh, maybe you don’t attack so much in beginning of race next time?” Yes. Good idea.

I found out the first two laps were not KOM point sprints, and that the first lap was also NOT a sprint prime at the finish line. So I only won two primes and took 2nd in one KOM, which meant I wasn’t in contention for the KOM. It was still enough money to pay for groceries today though. That’s one of the great things about racing here. You can make some good grocery cash if you race three times a week and consistently place top 20 or 30 or win a few primes, since the racing only costs 3 euros and there’s no gas money to pay if you ride there. Though, all that racing and riding adds to your grocery bill, so maybe it doesn’t really make monetary sense in the end.

Anyways, the winning move went with 1.5 laps to go at the KOM climb. The guy who won wasn’t in a single move off the front and he was not the strongest guy in the race. It all came down to attrition. Live and learn I guess. But then again the other hilly race I’ve done here saw the winning move go on the third or fourth of 13 laps. And the race the day before this race the move went 1.5 laps in. I attack early, the move goes late. I don’t attack or follow moves early, the split goes immediately. I can never get these damn kermesses right!!! But once I do, I’m going to lay down some Oregon law on these damn Belgians!

It was a long, slow, tiring ride home. Luckily Jake pulled Justin and I home the whole way since he only lasted three or four laps.

I know all of you hate reading and are only here for the pictures, so here they are:

My leftover coffee from the day before, saved in a tomato sauce container and being heated up on the stove. This is moments before I opened it and it blew up everywhere.

Jake and Justin on the ride out there.

Me throwing in an attack.

Justin, as usual flipping the camera off.

Justin’s mate, Dan, from the Check Republic rode a strong race for 2nd.

“Shatt’ed, but me hair’s neatly done ‘n ready for tea ‘n crumpets with me auntie and the Queen,” is probably what’s on this English bloke’s mind.

Robot leaf picker-uper on our walk to the train station.

A day of being a tourist in Brugge! AKA, hey Geoff let’s go eat a lot of junk food.

Winger, the Belgians made a shirt for you

Candy being made

A tower

Another tower

Waffle stand

These horse carriages stormed through the city crushing people’s toes who didn’t get out of the way fast enough

Chocolate

More chocolate

The market square. Learned via Wikipedia the night before: Brugge was discovered by the Vikings, who’s lust for chocolate and waffles lead them to create a city devoted to producing only two things: chocolate and chocolate-covered waffles. Sometime later the French got angry at Brugge for outclassing their chocolate production and sent an army to destroy the city. The army didn’t make it far though, losing interest and growing depressed from the gray, drizzly weather shortly after entering Belgium.

After nearly an hour of starving to death and growing severely weak, we finally bought food. Friets groot. (large).

French fry museum. I snuck in. People actually paid for this! There were two stupid little exhibits and a bathroom and that was it!

A kermess in Brugge would have been brutal. Every single road was cobbled.

Secret garden

Not sure what this means, but I’m assuming you’re supposed to take a leak on the wall in 50 meters.

Back into the town square where there’s food. Basically once you got outside the restaurant/chocolate/and waffle places the tourists disappeared. Like us, they were here strictly for the treats.

Same went for the horses

Finally! Down to business! 250 grams of chocolates all for Kennett. That’s over half a pound for all you non-metric readers. I ate it all in an hour and a half after REALLY trying to save it to bring home for my family.

Next up were pitas

Hiding out at the back of the train because we “tried” but couldn’t find where to buy tickets. haha. yeah…

New day–Saturday. Something smells, but for once it’s not me. It’s the giant heap of onions in my back pockets.

Thanks farmer John for being out vegetable sponsor for the day!

New day–Sunday. Obligatory pluming work photo.

Just hanging out.

Post-race waffle.

I don’t know why it made these last photos so small. Click to enlarge.

Rollin’ in the dough here in Zingem (got the Z backwards, whoops). 10 euros for 21st place out of another large field of 120. I missed the massive 19-man move that went right after the first of 13 laps. Today was the first day I haven’t attacked in the opening two laps of the race and today was the first time the break actually went then…typical. Apparently to get in the winning move you need to know who’s who, only moves with specific riders will stay away. If someone named Mario or Guy is in your move, you’re golden (both being living legends here in Belgium having won more than 400 races each). Tomorrow…

*Before the race*

Downtime in Belgium. The first half of my day:

I’m bored right now. Very bored. I’m so bored I wish I could find a book in English to read. When I’m not on the bike, there’s very little to do here. Going to town to get groceries is probably the most interesting thing in my quiver. But that requires work: a 45-minute round trip ride on a busy road with a heavy backpack full of food. Other activities that keep me busy while I’m on a rest day or waiting for a race to start include spending time on my computer and talking to the other guys here—there’s only so much to talk about with other cyclists though (bike racing and training pretty much sum it up).

Fortunately for us here in this shit-hole apartment we have internet, which means facebook, cyclingnews, youtube, movies, skype, and email. Enough entertainment to last years. But that all ended a few days ago. Apparently some types of internet packages only allot for a certain amount of data usage, ours being 50GB, which only lasted us two weeks since there are five of us here with computers. I’ve been downloading movies, and with Jake’s excessive porn obsession, 50 GB didn’t stand a chance.

Now our only internet option is to steal it from the McDonalds across the street by standing at the kitchen windowsill or sitting up in the living room windowsill. It all depends on where the magic wifi spot decides to show up. It’s a slow, crummy connection that doesn’t work on my computer most of the time so I’ve been forced to find other things to do.

Geoff, Evgeny, and Jake getting McDonalds wifi in the kitchen.

Me in the living room windowsill getting some blazing slow internet.

Right now I’m writing a blog, which is a good time eater. Earlier I went down to the fruit store to look at the overpriced fruit, taking up five minutes of the crabby store-owner’s time while she waited for me, then walked out without buying anything. Before that I spent a good hour, hour and a half playing Reckless Drivin’, a demo game I’ve had on my computer since 2005 that employs graphics from 1990. The premise of the game is to drive recklessly and smash into other cars, motorcycles, school buses, etc, to rack up points and get to the finish line before the time runs up. Police cars chase you and try to run you off the road to blow you up. It’s a very complex game that requires great attention to strategy and much deep thought:

Here’s a screen shot to ease your eagerly awaiting minds of what this game looks like:

This is actually a helicopter view of Spencer going to the grocery store. SPENCER WANT CAPPN’ CRUNCH!!!

Here are my high scores:

Since the nearest city is pretty far away and all that extra riding and time spent on our feet would reduce recovery, we’re pretty much stuck here on the side of the highway in the apartment. The only things of interest here is the bread machine downstairs and the increasing insanity of Michael, the Greek. Last night he told us that the black gangs in LA (who control all the white politicians in Washington) were tracking his credit card statements via the internet and were perusing him here in Belgium to steal his brainpower and all his ingenious ideas for inventions. He also knew 9/11 was going to happen weeks before it occurred, and all the way back in the 80’s he’d already foreseen the economic meltdown of 2008.

My race doesn’t start until 6pm tonight, and I’ll be getting back from the 111-mile ride out there—the race—and then ride home at around 10PM if I’m lucky.

*After the race*

I got lost heading out there as usual and barely made it in time to start. In fact the officials weren’t even going to let me start at first; they basically postponed the race by five minutes to let me in. It took a lot of quick convincing, me explaining I’d been riding for two hours to get there, and they decided to be nice. I made a mad dash for the start line after the officials scrambled and ran around to find me a number. Someone in the crowd pinned my number to me as the gun went off and I began another race in the rain.

I thought the it would be a typical kermess with laps between 8 and 10 km, but this was more of a crit: 102km with laps between 2.5 and 3km with one slight uphill drag (so maybe 40 laps in total). There were only four 90-degree corners and a few S-curves, though there was plenty of sprinting to be done despite the lack of corners. The finish line was on a downhill, narrow road bending around one of the S-curves. And it was wet. Perfect.

The course was not hard enough. With 119 starters, it was too easy to sit in so I attacked throughout the entire race and spent roughly half the time off the front in moves that only lasted one to two laps at the most. It was the typical Belgian breakaway style of riding off the front: one guy takes a big pull, no one pulls through, everyone yells at each other, guys attack, pull through briefly, half the break is dropped, four new guys bridge up and attack…

With seven laps to go I decided to sit in and wait for the finish, believing that nothing could stay away. Somewhere in the final 5 or 10 laps four guys did get up the road and stuck it. I have no clue when this happened and didn’t find out about it until well after the race finished.

I was positioned pretty well until a half lap to go and got swarmed and was back to 50th place going into the final corner. With around 600 meters to go on the uphill drag I attacked on the sidewalk and got around almost everyone, bridging up to a few guys just off the front and taking fourth or fifth wheel. I could win this thing! (or take fifth actually, but I didn’t know that at the time). But with 300 meters to go I got swarmed on both sides and had nowhere to go as the downhill sprint started. I actually had to put my brakes on about 10 meters before the finish line. I took 12th in the sprint, 16th overall, finally getting into the top 20 at least. There’s some hard, hilly races coming up soon that will be much more selective, which are really what I’ve got my eye on.

The process of collecting race money took forever as usual. 60 guys crammed into a tiny room in the back of the bar, all trying to see the finish line footage on the computer and pick themselves out on it and prove they were in the top 30 (this race’s pay-out number). Half an hour into the argument, the box of cookies on a tray for coffee (not for the racers) had disappeared. Another half hour later the results were finally figured out and everyone collected their measly 15 euros. The top five or ten must get all the money because there was 800 euros in prize money.

In a bizarre stroke of luck three of the Israelis that I knew, from when I came here to Belgium in 2008, were at the race. We caught up afterwards during the long, drawn-out prize money dispute and they decided it wasn’t safe for me to ride home 50 kilometers in the dark (it was pitch black outside by now). There wasn’t room for me and my bike in their car, so instead of me riding home on my own with front and rear lights at a safe pace on back roads with nice slow speed limits of 50 km/hr (30mph)—instead of that they wanted me to draft and hold onto the car for 50 kilometers going 50-60 km/hr on those same back roads.

I collected my money and left the crowded bar, and after posing for a picture with a drunken cougar and receiving a quick kiss, I took off in the dark to partake in the most dangerous and exciting part of my day (the race only taking a close second place). With high levels of caffeine and adrenalin left over from the race still running through my veins, I was ready for danger. I started out by drafting, then switched to holding onto the left side of the car for most of the trip, making myself skinny when oncoming traffic passed or when road islands suddenly popped up out from the darkness out of nowhere. As I thudded heavily through potholes and over speed bumps at 45 miles an hour, I felt my wheels ache in pain, the single hand I had on the bars wavering an alarming amount from the violent jolts. I’d let go of the car and sprint ahead during roundabouts or sharp corners or when the potholes got too bad I’d let go and draft for a moment. The gps on the Israelis’ iphone took us down wrong roads and through every road construction zone in Belgium, all littered with raised manhole covers, gravel, road barricades—everything revealing itself from the darkness at the very last second before I’d either slam my brakes on or sprint to get in front of the car. I ended up doing a lot more sprinting on my ride home than I would have liked, but it saved me a considerable amount of pedaling time.

After the crazy nighttime “second race” of the day was completed, I was home at 11PM instead of 12AM. I didn’t come off my high for another couple hours and finally crashed heavily at 1:30AM after a seventeen large bowls of muesli and fish and lettuce sandwiches. The first half of the day was spent napping and being bored out of my mind, the second half with cortisol levels maxed: anxiety over getting lost on my way to the race, the excitement of the race, then the blistering suicide mission home hanging onto the side of a car driven by an Israeli equally high on race nerves as me. Ying and yang. Sweet and sour, hot and cold–Katy Perry style.