The Long Awaited

First up I wanna apologize to all the people I've been a bit slack with keeping in touch with since I've been over here. Pretty sure I'm not going to have any mates when I get home.

Well it's been a couple of months since the last post and a lots happened in that time. We now have five guys in the flat with the addition of another Englishmen and a young Australian lad named Skippy. Both are pretty good guys, apart from Steve (sorry Steve mate, it's nothing personal, you're just a bit of a dick). And I've also made friends with a gay barista at the cafe down the road. Even managed to get  few free coffees out of him the other day...MEAN!

On the cycling side of things we've now been introduced to a few different racing types. As well as the usual kermesses we've done a few criteriums which are not so prestigious but a good way of picking up a bit of coin as well as interclubs which are similar to kermesses but longer and include a convoy of team cars and always doping control so there is a much more professional element to it. The first few interclubs weren't so pretty with mechanical issues and illness interfering but the latest interclub was better. It wasa bout 160km in heavy rain and even included a few climbs which is unusual for Flanders racing. Unfortunately we missed the break and once it's gone you're racing for whatever place is left.

The crits have been a bit more eventful, we even managed to bag the win in one of the local crits. Steve won the bunch kick after a perfect leadout from Matt. I've also had some bad luck in the crits. In one I managed to roll a tub and managed to keep the bike up but wrote off my rear Zipp.

Speaking of crashes, young Skippy seems to have developed a taste for Belgium roads. I think he binned it something like 3 times in 2 weeks. The most spectacular when he hit a cone in the middle of the road and landed on his face. It was pretty sick. Even with the grazes on his face, he's still a damn fine looking young gentleman.. just like myself.

Just over a month ago we crossed the ditch to the UK for a week. Had my first introduction to racing in the UK and to be honest with you, I wasn't impressed. I did a small 1 hour race with about 30 guys on a pretty boring little crit circuit. It turned out about a quarter of the starters were on the same team (Team Felt) so the race was pretty negative. I finished 6th in a chase group and funnily enough, Felt came away with nothing after letting a break go with only one rider in a group of 4.

While in England we did manage to hitch a ride into London to check the sights. Matt and I saw all that stuff you need to see so we can tick London off the list. I was pretty impressed with how organised the Underground system is.

The other highlight of England was when we rocked up to the Henley Regatta, a multi day rowing event. We managed to scrounge some tickets into Liander Club were all the other class people mince around. So we jacked up a few mismatching suits and managed to get in. Turns out there was more going on up the road at the local student bar anyway.

Below: The Three Musketeers

                                                

Also rocked up to the medieval town Brugge the other day. I'd heard a legend about a cholcolate shop in Brugge that makes chocolate worthy of kings so we couldn't pass that opportunity. Turns out you ask for how much you want (in our case 2kg) of any type you can imagine and they chisel it off a giant block. It was so good...but so so bad.

Anyway, I'm into my final month now so I'm just going to drive myself into the ground with racing I think. There are a few good local races coming up and hopefully at some stage meet up with K-Rex who's currently stagiaring with Marco-Polo in Belgium. Good stuff Rex.

And congrats to Goat-man who just got engaged to the beautiful Jess Morton.

Tot Zeins,

TA