Riders on the Storm...

When coming up with titles for my entries its always a quick thought...like what comes to my mind first quick. For all you academics out there, this is known as "stream of consciencness." today we had thunderstorms off and on. Since moving to the west coast, I haven't experienced a lot of thunderstorms like the ones I grew up too in eastern Tennessee or while living in Chicago, which by the way has some serious storms. I thought the title was appropriate b/c i was heading out to the Colruyt(grocery store with a warehouse feel). I pulled my bike out only to fill the first drops...i put the bike back just in time because the skies opened up for a good 20min. Fortunately things dried quickly and I was able to make it back out to get some dinner preperations. On the way down, I rolled through a neighborhood street which was blocked off and people were pouring onto the streets with small wooden boxes. They laid the boxes on the asphalt next too a meter stick with a chair in front of the box. I couldn't quite figure out what it was but it sounded like they had birds inside the boxes. There were literally 20 of these boxes lining the streets. It must be some sort of contest of avian type. Quite exciting! I didn't stick around as the clouds were looming on the front and my stomach was dictating the course for the evening. Trying to find canned tuna in water is quite the ordeal. You can find tuna in vegetables and about 5 different types of oil. Being the conscience bicycle racer I am keeping a fairly strict diet and trying to lose a few kilos. Its a tough game b/c you have to eat enough to keep properly fueled but its difficult perusing the store and seeing all the delictable treats. I've done pretty good, limiting myself to not taking full advantage of the cheeses, breads, beer, chocolates, and pastries. I will however have one belgian waffle before I leave =) I did buy a nice bottle of spanish wine tonight, 2.58euro. Pretty good bottle I might add. Wine is sickly cheap here as I have previously mentioned.

Went for a nice 1.75hr training ride this morning to Oodenarde then north along the canal then west to Deinze and south to Oslene just over 1100kjs. So about 2.5hours of riding today with the store run. Not sure if I mentioned before but a mechanic for TMobile lives next door. I saw a few of the TMobile bikes out the other day. Some protour mechanic advice for cleaning your bike, although not so Cali/enviro friendly. If you want your chain cleaned really well, use a chain cleaner with diesal fuel. Fairly inexpensive and makes the chain shiny as new. Works well when cleaning your cogset as well. Like I said, not so enviro friendly but apparently thats what all the pro mechanics do here in Europe. As the adage goes, "things are different here in Europe."

Tomorrow I am doing the Sint Denijs-Gevelgem kermesse at 3pm. Its about a 30k ride for a 115k race. So the day should be another long one in the saddle. Plan for sunday is to take it easy b/c I am racing again on Monday. This time I am bringing my boxing gloves and brass knuckles in case things get a little hairy and I have to keep up with foreign relations if you catch what I mean...


I will end this entry by giving a shoutout to Nettie Kelly in HSS300. Her tireless work has lead to several office awards which I want to point out to the rest of this blog world. She also makes a mean granola which was super tasty when I arrived here in Belgium.

Chow Chow,
Matthew