Winding down a bit

After spending much of the summer here at the Cycling Center with 26+ guys in the house...it is finally calming down. Over half have returned home and a place that felt a bit crowded suddenly feels almost empty. Not that I was happy to see most of them go, but at this point it is really nice to have a bit of breathing space. I don't have to fight for a wash machine, I can cook dinner without having to dance around 10 others trying to do the same thing, I don't have to listen to 10 guys sitting around debating about what TT frame (that they will never own, or ever ride) is better, and I am actually sitting here in the main room with NOBODY else. Alright, I'm not really complaining. Its just that living with 7 guys is way easier than 26. And, yes, I am a bit introverted by nature...so I like it. In the last few days I have finnaly lost the urge to throw people out the window....awwww isn't that nice. I say all this half jokingly, but only half.

So who wants to ride to a Bakery and get some pasteries??

Only in Belgium

Bevey UCI 1.12.1324242387749238057920...umm its in france someplace

A good post race expression by Kevin Vandersteene, seems to convey a 1000 words more than I could say.

Noel trying to hand me a bottle of recovey stuff as I am ready to tip over after a rain soaked race...that had the start moved back 1 hour and then actually started 20min. later than that...ahhh France.

How old am I??

After five months here at the CC in Belgium I have realized that I am slowly reverting to a younger child-like self. Today during dinner myself and a few others decided that you needed a password to get into the kitchen and proceeded to block the door and hang a sign on it that ironically read "no girls allowed." Yeah, I kinda instigated it with the sign. And, yes, I know that I have no sentence strructure/grammar. Why not, right? I'm thinking that I was acting something like 8-9 years of age. At that rate I will be 5 or so next week. Sound good? Oh, and the part of the password involved jumping around like a monkey.

Why would anything be serious...hell I've been a bike bum for how long now??

Bunches and Bunches

I have done bunches and bunches of races since last updating. In fact that is why I have not been updating. Race, eat, sleep, race, eat, sleep, and in between that, recover, recover. In that time I have done a handful of UCI 1.12 races, capped off by a stage race Vlaams Brabant (2.12). The one day races went pretty good with one of them ending in a bunch sprint that we attempted to line it up, but quickly discovered that the bunch of us young grasshoppers have much to learn. The stage race went well not great as far as I saw, but afterward I go commentary from others was much more positive than I ever would have thought.

In the first two days I sustained two crashes. One was while I was near the front of a group and someone in front of me decided to be really stupid, but I suppose it is still my fault. The second was a massive pile-up with more than half of the field going down. It was one of those “the world is crashing down on me” sort of feelings. It ended with many layers of bikes on top of me. By the morning of the third day I was feeling like a 90 year old man that had just tried playing full NFL game. We did end up with a man finishing 17 on the overall, so all efforts were not wasted, but I still stand frustrated. No, matter what others have to say about my performance. Hey, if I can’t be critical towards myself than who can. If you want more details about my bruises, or if you want to hear me be even more critical of how things went, just shoot me an e-mail. Otherwise, I will spare the rest of you.

Fitness is good, attitude is positive, bruises are healing and preparations are moving along for another stage race. Bring it on.