Brugge and Ronde de Vlanderdaan

So its been two days since I have written, sorry to leave you all in the dark of the mysteries of my trip. Now time to give you the updates...

I took a rest day on Monday and headed to the city of Brugge. Its a beautiful city with incredible architecture and lots of churches with tall spires to go along with the high prices of food. This is probably one of the more visited regions of Belgium and notably so. Lots of canals and beautiful squares and buildings. A true architectural digest moment if you will. I rode Holly's town bike to the train station which is about 8k from the house. Imagine 6'4" lanky guy on a bike for a 5' girl. Pretty funny looking but it does the job. Its actually more exhausting to ride this town bike for 8k than to ride for 30k on my bike. Its a real POS but thats what most town bikes are. If I was going to be here for an extended period I would buy a town bike. I'm use to riding fast on a racing bike, but the simplicty of the single speed town bike is incredibly fun. I will try to get a picture later on in case any of you need a pick me up laugh for the day =)

The time in Brugge was nice. I walked around a bit but ended up just spending a lot of time chillin in the square reading my book on the Tour de France. Pretty relaxing. Put my photography skills to the max and will post some photos later. For lunch, I was battling an internal quandry...go cheap broogie(sandwich) or something a little more filling. After walking around trying to find a broogie stand I ran across this italian joint which had a nice lunch menu. I checked out the menu then saw some nice looking dame in the window, american girl with her mom. Needless to say, i went in primarily for the food but the window beauty sold the bill. Did I talk to her??? Gosh no, I went to my own table and just chilled out =) Went with a nice tagitalle (sp?) and tomato sauce with a glass of red vino. Nice spread with some bread and olive oil, 12euro. not too bad and really my first proper restaurant meal. I figure I have to let loose a few times and it was incredibly relaxing and delicious. the wine here is very good and cheap too. I need to conjure up a scheme to bring some home but with the baggage allowance on British Airways its going to take serious scheming and logistical knowhow. Fortunately, I have pretty good skills in this area. While I was chilling out in the plaza area reading my book a Belgian approached me. Spoke very good english too me and asked my name. I replied then he shook my hand, but it didn't end with just a gentlemanly shake. It went right into the "im your homey shake" and stayed there squeezing my hand. I was weirded out but kept my cool. He asked what I was doing, told him I am here to race bikes. Then he asked if I wanted to hang out later. i declined then he asked if I would take his number then I can call him and we can hang out. ::::what was going on, and how do I let the guy down::: I told him Im not interested and that I had to go, which was half true. So now I can check off being picked up by someone in belgium. Too bad it was some guy and not a podium girl. But one day, I will get my podium girl =)

Yesterday, I rode in the Ardennes and followed the Rhonde de Vlanderdaan(tour of flanders). Lots of cobbles and hills. I did one climb wich was 17% and 200m cobbled. Felt like a champ as I crested with my energy still good. Kept rolling through and hit the famous Muur climb. Rode the entire climb, 1k in length and all cobbled. Steady 11-15% with some spots 20%. It was fun. Nice view from the top. All in all it was a great training ride, 5hours.

Today, I am doing a kermesse in West Vlanderdaan and then riding home. Should be a a good 160k for the day. Tomorrow will probably be an easy spin day to flush the legs then racing on Saturday.

ciao ciao,
matthew