A Pretty Sweet Week

Well the good news is that I'm feeling good again. After going on the red meat and spinach diet, I feel heaps better. I think I even feel better than I did before. We had a Kermesse on Friday night that started at about 6 O'clock. It was one hell of a windy day with mega crosswinds all around the course. I would say there were about 120 starters at this race and I think after the first lap the field was cut down to nearly half that. The aim for this race was to always be near the front because most of the time we were riding single file. There was one section of the course that was cross tail wind so everybody was sitting in the gutter on the left hand side of the road. This road was a main road too so there were oncoming cars that had been pulled off to the side of the road while we came through but they weren't completely off the road and it was shit scary trying to hold the wheel in front of you because you were almost riding on the grass trying to get protection from the wind and there were parked cars you had to keep an eye out for. We were doing over 50kph on this section, it was all single file and all of a sudden I see the rider in front of me swing out to the right and I'm heading straight for a parked car so I swing right too and just miss this car so now I'm just waiting for the sound of a bike hitting a car. And BANG! There's that sound. It sounded nasty as and I made the mistake of turning around to see the carnage and by doing that I drop the wheel in front of me. It was bloody hard to get back on with the mighty crosswind blowing a gale but I managed to get back on. It was a bloody hard race. It wasn't a Under 23 race so there were some older guys racing which made it that much more difficult. I got dropped with 6 laps to go out of the 16 lap race and I felt pretty good which I was happy about. It was a real hard race with the windy conditions and the amount of good riders that were racing. I was pretty happy that I wasn't just hiding in the bunch the whole time too, I tried a couple times to bridge across to break-aways and drove on the front probably too many times to try and catch a big break-away of riders. All in all I'm feeling pretty good on the bike now. Boiled spinach with a little bit of butter and pepper is my new favorite meal now.
Taylor's girlfriend, Madison, is over here for about a week so we've gone a done some sightseeing. On Saturday, it was a rainy cold day so we decided to go catch the train up to Bruge (The Chocolate Capital). Bruge is a pretty cool town, it was packed, especially with tourists. The have heaps of old buildings and canals and chocolate shops. This one street was covered in chocolate shops. We went into all the chocolate shops and wow! So much chocolate! We just wandered around the place and looked at all the old buildings and we got fresh waffles with cream on top. You could easily put 5kg on if you spent a whole day in Bruge, it was so tempting to buy all this bad food that they had on offer. They had a triathlon on so we sat down at a cafe and got ourselves a cherry flavored beer and watched the triathlon on the big screen. It was a good way to kill a rainy cold day.
Today, Taylor and I decided to go for a ride earlyish so we could catch the train back into Ghent. We were pretty desperate to go back to that nice cafe that sells all the good coffee and have a flat white. That was the first thing we did as soon as we got off the train and then afterwards we were buzzing because that was the first coffee we had had in a while. We explored the town a little bit more because it wasn't raining like the last time we were there. We walked along the canal and found this big old castle that was built I think in the 1100's. We went inside a very old church as well which was pretty amazing with all the marble art and the stained glass windows. It was a huge building and there are heaps of big churches all around Ghent. Everywhere is really busy now because it is the school summer holidays so there are heaps of kids out now. Just had a look around the shops as well and then headed home. Pretty fun day out, a lot better than sitting around inside.
We went into Kortrijk the other day with Andrew and we popped into Andrew's work (it's called Sports Direct which is basically a Rebel Sport and they are opening a Sports Direct back home in NZ) and we saw a rugby ball so Taylor and I went half on it, only payed about 3.50 euro each for it. Bargain! We had our first mini touch game yesterday in the backyard until the rain had stopped play. We saw a poster in Bruge advertising a Beach Rugby tournament so we might have to head back to Bruge when it's on and watch. I think it might be a bad idea to play because I've already pulled a muscle in my ass from playing touch yesterday.
Went a different way on our ride on Sunday and headed towards Ieper which is a famous war town. In the area surrounding Ieper are heaps of World War 1 cemeteries. There are so many scattered around the area, it's really cool to see so when mum and dad come over we'll have to drive around and have a look at some of them.
It's been a pretty good week, sleeping well, riding well, doing stuff outside like going to different towns. Made some banana bread the other day but it didn't turn out too well. The sides and bottom were burnt, especially the bottom, because we have a gas oven so the heat is all from the bottom so I think next time I won't put the heat on full blast and I'll slowly cook it. The middle was still pretty good so I just chopped the bottom and sides off. So yea that's about it. The weather has changed again, just windy and quite cold now, it's going down to single digits at night but yea all is good. Supposed to warm up in the weekend. So yea. I chuck some photos up.

Thanks for reading

Nick

One of the canals in Bruge

Big tower in Bruge and Triathlon finish line

A cool little hallway thing with golden bits on it in Bruge

Found a New Zealand war memorial on our Sunday ride

A big French and Belgium WW1 cemetery. That's only 1/3 of it. Couldn't fit the rest in

Maddy and I outside the castle in Ghent

Pretty Short Blog

This week hasn't been such a good week. Been feeling and riding really average. I wasn't sleeping good at all, I found it really hard to get to sleep. While riding, I didn't feel like I had any power in the legs and after about an hour and a half I would pretty much hit a brick wall and become really sleepy, I just wanted to close my eyes while riding. I was told to have a few days off to try recuperate which I did but with no one at the house I was pretty bored. So on Thursday I decided to pack some of my things, chuck 'em in a bag and ride over to Zottegem where the other boys from the team are staying.  Zottegem is about a 75km ride and lucky for me I had a tailwind all the way. Living at the house in Zottegem are two kiwi's, two aussies, an Irishman and a Manx (Isle Of Man for you non-geographical people). One of the Aussies had gone to France to compete in the Tour that Taylor was doing so they had a spare bed. The guys are all a real good laugh. Had a pretty good time staying with some different people. The riding in Zottegem is pretty nice too, there are quite a few steep climbs you can find and we managed to find a massive man-made beach so I might have to go back over there one day and go for a swim. They have a big camp ground by the beach and an indoor swimming pool with a big as slide and you can go mountain biking or walking around the forest that surrounds the beach.
I'm still not quite feeling right with my riding, struggled a bit to ride home from Zottegem into the headwind but I survived. I think I could be lacking in something like iron so I decided to cook up a good feed for dinner tonight. Bought myself a big as steak and dad suggested to get some spinach as well, cause we saw how strong Popeye got when he ate it, fried up some sliced potatoes and boiled up some eggs. Cooked up some choice kiwi Kai tonight, it was good as aye bro. Sadly didn't have a BBQ to cook the steak on though.
Nothing else too interesting happened last week. Watched the second half of the All Blacks game, that last try was awesome! I don't know how he off loaded it! Pretty excited to have mum and dad come over here to see me. Really excited to have a look around London with them and go see all the war sites around Belgium and France, hopefully we'll go to Normandy cause I really want to see that. Supposed to be over 30 degrees tomorrow the weather is forecasting. Looks like back home you guys I getting smashed by rain and the South Island is going to be pretty white, guts for you. The one thing I hate about living in the country over here is the amount of flies, and these are some ruthless flies. They buzz all around your face and ear. Sometimes there's a fly that stays in my room and it wakes me up cause it either lands on my face or buzzes in my ear. I found a ruler in one of the drawers and now, the flies are dropping like flies... Hey yo! Also, they have air powered canon on the farm paddocks to keep the birds from destroying the crops, and these canons are loud! Scares the shit out of you when they go off while you are riding past. I wonder if it scares the old people who made it through World War 2?
So yea, that's about it. Going to try do a small race this weekend to see how the legs are doing. Hopefully I get some form in the old legs again soon.

Thanks for reading
Nick

Just Another Week In Belgium

Nothing too exciting has really happened this week. Thought I would have bit of training week this week and do some big rides in the weekend but that didn't really happen. I felt pretty average while riding this week. Felt good on Saturday and did a fast 90k ride. I wanted to do more but I had skyped my friends back home and watched the rugby with them. A bunch of my mates gathered at Sam's house to watch the rugby and they put the computer in front of the TV so I could watch the rugga with them. Go the mighty All Blacks! I went out for my ride quite late and I had to get home so I could go shopping because I had nothing for dinner and the shops are closed on Sundays. I whipped a pretty good chicken lasagne and I munched on that for Saturday and Sunday dinner. My roommate, Taylor, has gone over to France for just over two weeks for a big 3 day tour in the mountains. It's a pure climbers race so I didn't get chosen for that which I am kind of happy about because they do about 90km a day and that normally takes them about 4 hours! I am going to head back over to the house in Zottegem either tomorrow or Wednesday and chill with the other guys in the team because it is quite boring living and riding by myself. There's wifi at the house too! None of this internet cable stuff. I have moved my laptop over to the couch for a change, lucky the internet chord is so long.
The weather here has definitely warmed up. We had about 3 days of sun and warmth which was bloody nice to ride in. It felt good to ride in only shirts and shorts again. I had to wear shorts and singlet for one of the days because it was that hot.
Last Monday, Taylor and I rode up to Kortrijk on the town bikes and met up with some kiwi riders that are over here. It's quite funny how many kiwis there are over here. Yesterday I saw a Jeep that had three big silver fern stickers on the boot and on both doors, I've also seen a few random people wearing New Zealand riding kits and there is a house near Oudenaarde, I think it could be a B&B, and it has the NZ flag and a silver fern flag on flag poles just in front of the house. We have more kiwis coming over here now with the Junior track team that are going to Worlds arriving very soon.
I got a bit bored on Friday and I had a few brown bananas lying around so I decide to make some banana muffins. I bought a muffin tray and bread tin from the supermarket and I decided that I would try out my new muffin tray today. Mum had sent me an awesome banana muffin recipe and I think they came out pretty awesome. They tasted damn good too. I put a heap of chocolate chips in them so they were awesomely chocolaty. Managed  to make nine muffins and I ate them all.
The picture below is of the Izegem Canal.
We went to Andrew's parents house for dinner some day last week (I just spent about 5 minutes trying to think what day we went over there but I can't remember) and they cooked up a mean feed in their outdoor fireplace cooker thing. They cooked up two sets of big ribs and some other kinds of meat and sausages. It was quite nice to try some different meats and not have to cook because that night I was on cooking duty. I had a try of Duvel beer which is quite a fancy Belgium beer, it's 8% too which is quite a lot for a beer. Tasted good though.

That's about it from me. Wasn't too exciting of a week over here. I think it will be a good week living with some different people. Oh yea, got my haircut the other day too after about 2 and half months. It was about a month and a half over due but I got one so now mum can stop nagging me. That's all really. Hopefully the warm sunny weather stays and my legs feel a bit better.

Good Legs, Tough Race

On Saturday I had my third Pro Kermesse and my goal for this one was to, again, just finish and gain experience. Tom Boonen was racing again and as we were walking to sign-on we see him pulling into a driveway in his flash new Ferrari. There were a number of Pro riders racing from a couple Pro teams just to make the race that much harder. The course was pretty difficult but not as technical as Tuesdays race. There were two small climbs in the 10 lap race but the hills were hard enough for people to start going backwards after a couple laps. The last hill had a cobble section at the top and then went to a downhill cobble section just to make things interesting. After the first lap, as we crossed the finish line, we were hitting 70kph in the tail wind but legs were still feeling strong. I was able to go into the red zone and then recover quickly and my legs were still feeling great which is a feeling I haven't had in a while so I'm hoping I continue to feel like this for the rest of the season. After 5 laps in the crosswind section of the course, a group of 45 riders managed to ride away from the bunch that was all pretty much single file. I was near the front when it happened but wasn't close enough to make the split. I was riding in a small chasing group of about 10 trying to chase but there were just too many strong riders in the split group. They're Pro for a reason. We then got caught by the remaining bunch and tried chasing for about 20km but the split group was just getting further and further away and smaller. Boonen was in the front group and was just destroying everyone. In the end, only about 7 riders finished out of the 200 or so starters. It was one hard race but my legs felt great. I was gutted that I was so close to making that split but overall I was pretty happy with how I felt.


Boonen's flash Ferrari

The other day, Andrew took us to the town of Ieper which is a very famous and historic town in Belgium. The town was completely destroyed by both WW1 and WW2. They have a big arch memorial thing that you can drive through. Every night at 8pm, people gather around the memorial and they start playing 'Last Post'. I'm hoping to head back there at night and watch this. It's a pretty amazing town and all around the town is big moat. There are hundreds of war cemeteries surrounding the towns too.

 So yea, that's pretty much it. Saving Private Ryan is on tv right now so we are just watching that. I don't think anything too exciting is happening this week. I don't think there is a team race this weekend so I'll probably just do a local Kermesse. That's pretty much it.

Second Pro Race and a Trip To Ghent

On Friday, Taylor and I decided to meet up with a couple other Kiwi riders in Ghent. We caught the train from the train station up the road in Izegem. It was a pretty cold rainy day so going to Ghent was a lot better than spending our Friday indoors. It's only about a 45min train ride to Ghent. We met up with a Christchurch  rider, Josh Atkins, at the train station in Ghent and we caught a tram into the main centre. It was even colder and raining more in Ghent so we sought shelter in a surfing clothes shop, it was a bit like Amazon, just full of expensive summer surfy clothes. Here's a little fact; this month has been the coldest month in 126 years and the day we went to Ghent, one year ago it was 30 degrees. I picked a great year to come to Belgium. Anyway, Josh new about a café that does really good coffee. They have so many different and good coffees and that is hard to find over here. It's pretty much the only place in Belgium that they do flat whites so I ordered up one of those. I also had a try of a Macchiato which is a double shot of coffee with a small amount of milk, it was pretty good. We were meeting up with Sean Joyce, who rides in the team I'm in and is from Taupo, and Clinton Avery and his girlfriend. Clinton rides for a semi pro team called Champion Systems and he races in a number of top Pro races and his girlfriend works with the NZ track team. We meet them at the café and had a few coffees and then we decided to go see Iron Man 3 at the movies. Didn't really get to do too much sight seeing because it was pretty cold rainy day and we had to make our way home before the last train took off. Got a couple pictures of the place while walking to the café.

 Sorry about the way the pictures are. They weren't moving to where I wanted them to be.

On Tuesday I had my second Pro Kermesse and the current World Champion, Philippe Gilbert, and the current Belgium Champion, Tom Boonen, were racing too. It was pretty awesome to see and ride with Pro riders like that. There were probably over 200 starters and it was pretty technical course with a lot of tight corners. There were so many people watching as well. There was one tight corner that had a wall of people as a barrier so if some stacked it round the corner... The atmosphere was pretty cool. The whole team lined up on a stage and there were heaps of photographers taking photos.

 My goal for the race was to pretty much finish. It was 170k and we were averaging 45kph. I was feeling pretty good until we hit 85km. I got a small knot of cramp in my right hamstring that took a little while to unknot but I managed to ride through it until about 95k when we came round a tight corner and when I pulled up the pedal to get back up to speed, my right hamstring completely knotted and it was so painful that I was pretty much stuck and I had to jump up on to the footpath so I wouldn't hold everyone up. I managed to finally stretch it out but I had to chase back on to the bunch. I managed to last another 10k but when we hit the cross wind section, I was still on the back and that's the worse place to be when there is a crosswind section. My legs kept cramping up and I dropped on the crosswind section. I was so gutted cause I was feeling good enough to finish. I'm starting to stretch a lot more and I'm getting a massage tomorrow which I am looking forward to cause my legs are so tight.
Got another Pro Kermesse on Saturday so I'm hoping for a better result.
That's about it. I'll write up another blog on Monday. I was pretty slack this week.

 Here's a picture of some cleaning product at the supermarket. The Bain's are pretty bad.

First Pro Race

As you can see I had my first Pro Race and if you read my blog last week you would know that I did my first pro race last Wednesday. It was one hell of a race. 175km, 15 laps, 200 starting riders and mayhem. I was pretty excited about the race and my goal was just to finish. Philippe Gilbert was not there though so no selfies with the world champ that day, one day though. It was a real quick race, finished the 175km in 4 hours flat. For all you non math geniuses like me that's an average of 43kmph. Not too shabby for a race with a few tight corners and narrow roads. There was quite a long stretch of road that we were doing well over 50kmph on and the team decided to set up there feed there (A feed is when the team helpers who don't ride stand on the side of the road and hold up a bottle and you ride past and catch it. This is basically what you do http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TfCQ0WRyYs) and because we were going so fast lots of riders were dropping bottles. It was basically like trying to catch a water bottle that was going more than 50kmph. I managed to catch two bottles out of the two I tried for so I didn't drop any. I just managed to avoid one crash. It was quite a nasty crash where one of my teammates went down. I was behind one of my other teammates and trying to avoid the crash his back wheel locked up and started to skid towards my front wheel. I rear skewer that holds his back wheel in place clipped my front wheel and made one hell of a bang and I started skidding towards the muddy ditch on the other side of the road. I managed to stay up right and so did my team mate who was in front of me. That definitely got the adrenaline pumping and we chased back on to the bunch. But there was a massive pile up behind us from the crash so it was lucky that I didn't get stuck behind the crash. I was also pretty stoked that I was able to move up places in the bunch by moving straight through the middle of the bunch instead of wasting energy and riding on the outside of the bunch into the wind. It is quite challenging and can be quite dangerous moving through the bunch because you have to squeeze through very small gaps and cut in front of people, gotta be mongrel as, this isn't a nice man sport. I just finished with the bunch in the race but I was stoked with what I achieved and that I finished which was the goal. Some Pro American guy won the race. Because it was a Pro race there is quite a bit of excitement from spectators and they set up this tent fully equipped with a bar and beer taps, I think these races are just an excuse to get pissed during the week. When we were signing in there was this one guy who approached me holding a portfolio and a pen and he asked me what team I was in, I tell him Terra Footwear and opens up his portfolio and I see all these neatly written teams and names with signatures in it. He finds the team Terra and asks what my name is and all in alphabetical order, there's my name and he hands me the pen and asks for my signature. I'm getting pretty famous over here. Next time I'm going to charge people if they won't my signature. I do admire there passion for the sport over here. They love it and it is quite cool going to races and there are heaps of people cheering for you.
Got another Pro Kermesse next Tuesday so hopefully I can get a good result. Been raining and pretty cold for most of the week which is really unusual for Belgium... But the forecast is saying sun and high teen temperatures starting on Wednesday so definitely looking forward to some sun in my bones again. Starting Friday on Discovery Channel is An Idiot Abroad season 4 which we are stoked about. Because 7Days is taking a break we have something else to look forward to on Fridays. Taylor and I used to sit and watch 7Days on the computer in the morning but they are taking a break for a few weeks and we would look forward to Fridays so much but now they are having a break we have been pretty depressed about our Fridays so An Idiot Abroad has made our Fridays again. If you don't know what An Idiot Abroad is, you can watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpePyoqbtJ0, sums it up pretty much. Nothing really else happening. It's another random Public Holiday today so nothing is open which is boring cause we are just stuck in the house. I was pretty bored yesterday so I cleaned the bathroom for the third time since I've been here. Trying to make it a weekly habit now. Hopefully my new wheels will arrive this week because I'm sick of riding on my heavy training wheels.
Yea, that's about it from me here. Hopefully everything is going good back home. Heard the Black Caps are being useless again. Oh yea, finally got my package from mum and dad the other day, 170 euros and 3 weeks later I've got it and in it is Kristi's iPhone so now I can take pictures a bit easier and I can put them up on my blogs to make it a bit less boring. I'm stoked about that. So yea, that's all.

Nick

Still Can't Really Think Of A Title

This week has been a bit different. Have had a pretty casual week of training with only doing a couple hours of riding a day. A nice rest week. The weather has been pretty average though. It has gone pretty damn cold again, super windy and raining, that's Belgium for ya I guess. On Thursday, 6 of the boys from the team and the team staff drove 4 hours into France for Tour De Loiret. I was named first reserve for the team but I was not needed. So on Thursday I was left to fend for myself as Taylor and Andrew had both gone. Andrew suggested that I ride out to the team house in Zottegem and stay a couple nights with two of the guys that are staying there. Normally there are six riders staying at that house but 4 of them had gone to the Tour in France. I just chucked some clothes into a back pack and rode out to Zottegem. It was heaps better to stay with some other guys at a different house rather than staying and riding by myself. I took my Ipad with me hoping there would be wifi at the house. And thank the lord! There was wifi! Haven't updated my Ipad since I've been here. I've been using an old school internet cable in my laptop. I felt like I was back in normal futuristic time using wifi again rather than using a cable. On the Saturday, the two of us went down to a Kermesse that was just a couple K's from the house. The Australian track team were doing the race to for preparation for track worlds. It was kind of cool to see some of the guys I raced last year. One of the Aussie riders had a big crash right next to me when some rider wiped out his front wheel while he was having a drink. I was feeling really good at the start of the race but I had learnt my lesson and wasn't trying anything to early on in the race. I was keeping right up near the front because it was quite a windy and wet day. After about 7 laps I got into a move with about 6 other guys. There was this one stupidly, annoying strong rider in the group with us that when he got on to the front he would surge off and absolutely hammer it and drop the rest of us. He would then turn around and get all grumpy at us and started yelling at us in Flemish. He was screwing us all up in one of the climbs where he would pretty much just ride us off his wheel and then in last desperate attempts to catch back up to him, riders would surge off to try and catch him and that kind of just screwed me up, always trying to catch back up to him. That break would have stayed away if that guy wasn't such a munter and used his strength to the breaks advantage. I got dropped from that break up one of the climbs and tried to sit on one of the chase groups for a while. For bit of entertainment there was bit of a punch during the race where two guys were arguing and one of the guys punched the other guy in the helmet. Not a very smart place to punch someone but it was pretty funny. Not too many riders finished the race because of the rain and crosswind. I didn't do too well in the end. It was a real tough race but I was quite happy how great I felt at the beginning, even with using my heavy training wheels and coming off a rest week. I rode back to the Kortrijk Kastle (the name of our house) in the wind in rain from Zottegem the next day. It was a block headwind the whole ride home. It took me 2.5 hours to ride 65k with a 27kmph average speed. Tough ride home.
Ryan Wills, who is a kiwi, ended up in second place in that French Tour which is an awesome result for the team. The team rode really well at the tour and I think Andrew was happy because he apparently sang for an hour non-stop on the drive home, according to Taylor. Wouldn't be surprised, sounds like something Andrew would do. He's a very funny guy.
Got that pro race on Wednesday which I'm looking forward to. Should be a good race and I'm hoping just to finish it in the main bunch. Should be tough, should be good. Game on.