'It's Belgium eh'

When a Belgian wants to sum up a situation that’s utterly crazy they say “its Belgium eh” and usually accompany this with a casual shrug and a little chuckle.  I have been greeted with this attempt to justify Belgian madness several times this week.  Firstly, I must say a big thank you to the nurse who patched me up beautifully after my latest scrape, but one thing is becoming, at times painfully clear…Belgium breaks bikes.  I live and train with two team mates, between us we have broken spokes, rims, had countless punctures and I topped it off by snapping my handlebars in my latest tumble.  Whenever I ask our mechanic about this he simply shrugs and give it “that’s Belgium ey!” .  This week has been the first time I’ve turned a pedal in anger.   Saturday was a pre-race ride, normally this would consist of a leisurely couple of hours…unfortunately we had to do a reconnaissance ride for an upcoming race.  For me this meant a first taste of true pave, a 3km stretch of cobbles.  I won’t go into the details, my mechanic summed it up best as he drove past me in the car, wound down the window and announced I ride cobbles like his grandma, and that he will have a look at home for some stabilisers for me! Still, at least I kept upright.  At the end of the Saturdays exertions a brief look down at the computer revealed we had clocked up 5.5 hours and covered 164km, that’s 102 miles. 

Sunday was to be a ‘Practice race’.  These are events where riders complete 80km training as a group before a 70km race, with a brief 10 minute period in-between to strip down to race clothing.  With heavy legs from the previous day’s efforts I set off with the aim of using it as training.  The race itself was run off at a fast pace on a tight circuit.  Within a kilometre I was ‘in the gutter’, this is a term used to describe fighting for your place in a race when the pace is very high and every rider is looking for some shelter.  On the flat stretches I was looking for more gears with speeds of over 55km per hour putting the field under serious pressure.  It was a mixed day for our team, my younger English team mate, Mike Gregg did an excellent ride and finished well up the field in his second race, I was in another group further back and rolled over the line in the mid 50’s.  the win went to a local favourite, Sean De Bie.  We capped the day off with Frites, a Belgian favourite as a treat.