My new digs in Oslene

I have reorganized myself now in Oslene which is in West Vlanderdaan (or West Flanders). I am living with Gregg Germer and his wife Holly. He is an american pro here on the Splendid team and Holly is a massage therapist from Hamilton, Canada...ehhhh =) The new situation is much much better. Its a real house and not a makeshift shanty. Shouldn't be eaten alive by bugs everynight and I have a washer and wifi in the house. Gregg is a great source for racing information as he has been racing here for a few years now. They are always using Flemish words and sayings so I should be able to pick up some language skills which is important for me. Oslene is about 25k south of Gent, pronounced Hent. Gent is a medieval city with a castle and such. Home to a lot of younger people. The are in general I have noticed has a lot younger people, and several attractive dames I might add =) West Vlanderdaan and Oost Vlanderdaan(East Flanders) are bike racing meccas. To the south of me you have the Ardennes and I am only about 35-40k from Roubiax. Tomorrow I am going to go and do a 4 hour steady ride with the friend of Gregg, Kootzie. He is a scottish pro here. Lots of good stories from him tonight.

When I arrived here yesterday afternoon after taking a couple of trains over here, I was eager to get out on the bike and shake the legs out a bit. Unfortunately, it is dumping rain and thundering all afternoon. It was probably a good day for me to take a rest. I did manage to ride about 6k in the morning to pay my rent at the other place and tell them adios but thats not much. When I started thinking about all the riding that I have done since I arrived last thursday, I calculated close to 900k. For me thats a lot over an 8 day period considering all the travelling I had to do. Waking up this morning the legs felt alright but I went for an easy hour, as I was planning to race later this afternoon. I did a nice little loop and stopped in Warregem, which is just south of here. Super cool town with lots of good cafes, shops, and a farmers market. I bought and apple and parked up at a cafe. I ordered my cappucino(that's for you Ceal) and ate my apple. It was a beautiful sunny day, pretty warm, 30C and humid. It was 1045am and typical Belgium, the cafe is filled up with 70% of the people there drinking a bier. Unbelievable. Isn't 1045 still considering coffee/espresso relaxation time? Not here, its pour a bier and kick back. There was this older lady, had to been atleast 70. She grabbed the complimentary cashews that always come with your bier and dropped the entire bowl in her purse then grabbed her beer and sat gleefully enjoying the sweet sweet taste of Belgian goodness. I couldn't help but laugh.

Made it back home and cooked up some pasta so I could have some fuel for the 115k race I had at 3pm. Gregg and Holly dropped me off at the bar to sign in and headed off to Ikea to buy a new bed for my room. Coincidently, they had just moved into this house a week ago. It was pretty warm, so I stayed under the tent trying to not inhale too much of the cigarette smoke. Two riders from Zimbabwe where in the race today. I think they are doing a documentary on these two lads b/c they had a camera guy and a mic man all around them. In Belgium, the races ALWAYS start on time. Not today. They were delayed by about 20min b/c of traffic. I benefited from getting a better starting position. My kiwi friend, Rico Rogers, came over from my old area to race today. He's a pretty good sprinter. Race finally started and the attacks were relentless. Belgian racers all want to be super protagonists in the race and will attack and attack. They even attack out of the breakaway when the break is working well together and still lots of k's to go in the race. After my frustration in my first few races, I finally picked a plan for today. My head was finally in the game per se. My plan was to ride near the front and not work at all. I managed to be in the top 5 or so for about 3 laps(7k laps). The rest of the time I was just out of the top 10, never in dangerzone and never working. If you are going to follow the "don't work" strategy you have to have a strong head for it. The belgians will yell at you all day long, atleast for the first 1.5 hours which is typically the hardest. Its funny b/c the foreigners tend to stick together. If you dont' say anything, then they don't know you are foreigner. Once you let them know, they will work you over. I worked over the Belgians hard today and sat glued to wheels all the time. One crazy belgian was giving me an earful. I looked at him straight in the eye and just staired at him. I thought about gesturing something on the lines that I can't hear. But I just staired him down. He shut up. In a US race if you don't work, then you yelled at during the race and at the end. In Belgium, you get yelled at during the race and thats it. As Shawn would say, I was being crafty. My original goal was too just hold on for an hour b/c I had such difficulty in the other 3 races. Well the hour passed at by 2 hours the pace was more steady and fewer attacks and less yelling. For the first time since arriving, I think I understood the racing. Go hard hard hard for the first hour and drop as many riders as possible, then ease up a little. It was over 30C for the entire race and I ran out of water b/c I don't have a souigner or my daddy to rub my legs with oil or hand me water bottles like all the other belgians. Ohh yeah, no food either. I wasn't able to follow the break that went and settled in on just finishing with the group. At that point I finally took some pulls at the front as there was a decent rotation going on. I could feel the cramping coming so I didn't push myself too far b/c I just wanted to finish. On 3 laps to go the ambulance came ripping through and the race director called us off the course! We were only about 45 secs down from the lead group. I was pissed. I learned later that they were battling serious traffic problems so they had to cut the riders in the race. In my eyes, i finished the race. Overall I am pleased with my result. Finally not getting dropped in the first 35min. I know now that I can hang with those guys b/c the kiwi said today's race was really hard. He commented on my form, which got me stoked. Now I just need to prepare for racing the entire race which means plenty of fluids and food. I will give it a go on Monday. If I would have had food today and fluids, I know I could have made the top 10.

152km today with lots of wind and a nice 75m cobble section. I did surprisingly well over the cobbles, just big ring and push hard. The bike sounds like its going to break in half though...LOL

Tot Ziens,
Matthew