Raced down near Gent in a town called Merelbeke today - Nice course - race didn't seem too fast. Body is starting to feel better - Went to a chiropractor on Friday. He said that I had a minor whiplash and torqued on some of my vertebrae. Felt like hell that night and the next day, but today is much better. Legs feel much better too. Looks like it is supposed to start raining this week - Might be hard doing the long endurance ride on the schedule tomorrow! Next race is a kermis in Assenede on Thursday. Interclub races on Sunday and Monday.
6/26/02I'm on a new track - trying to get ready for Elite Nationals in Nashville, TN. Got about a month to get ready. Corey and Barney set me up with a training plan - basically race and rest - I will have to avoid the temptations of the beach vacation town until the end of July. Nationals will probably be a bit of a crapshoot for a guy without a team, but I think its worth trying. Raced yesterday - Rode a good second lap and tried to relax on the third - you can't do that in a race with a strong crosswind - If you're too far back and the group goes single-file, it just takes a guy or two to pull out of line and you are gapped off the back - a couple of those, and you are done. I did that... It had a cobbled section that was pretty rough on last-week's crash injury anyway. I am going to arrange a chiropractor appointment tomorrow. Tomorrow is the Oostende-Konterdam kermis. goes down the street outside our neighborhood, so I'll go out and give that one a shot. I bought some new shoes and the new Time Impact pedals today - Needed some stiffer-soled-skinny-feet shoes, so I got a pair of Duegis to try out. The new Time pedals are pretty cool - we'll see how much the new foot position messes me up!
6/20/02Will this month never end???? Felt good yesterday in the kermis - until my abrupt stop on the 2nd lap - Guy in front of me took a dive after hitting a big rough spot in the road. About five of us hit the deck at full speed. Guess one of our bikes sparks pretty good - Mine was down the road a bit. We were towards the front, so I did a bit of cowering as the other 75 guys came past. I know I hit the first guy pretty hard. My handlebars ended up at about a 45 degree angle and my neck and shoulder are sore as hell. Not too much road rash - that's nice. I lost the bars on the same bump the first lap, so I guess we can't really blame the guy - just bad luck - And he can't handle bumps! I will be staying off the half-pipe for a couple of days...
6/17/02Back to racing - Have five races to do in ten days... Did one last night - went to relax in the pack - Saw the first good group go on the second lap and I couldn't resist! Started thinking about it about half way to the group. Made it across, but couldn't really do anything and had trouble holding wheels. Dropped back to the thrid group for a while. Still don't feel too great after the stomach/fever thing. Should be done with the medecine tomorrow. This will be a busy kermis week. Most of the group has split up and gone traveling for a week or two. Will be nice to have the house a little quieter even though I have gotten used to the disorder and will probably almost miss it! Today it is 80-something degress out! HOT! The beach is calling my name. Better get off the rear and on the bike for a bit...
6/15/02165km yesterday - good tempo ride - saw alot of scenery - Rode along the coast into France, down to Beurges and Wormhout. Headed East to Poperinge and Leper. The Diksmuide by canal and back to Oostende. The terrain down South by Leper is a little more interesting to ride - a bit more rolling. Sure feel the ride in my tendons after 3 days in bed!
Lots of the guys are leaving in the next couple of weeks for a bit of a vacation from racing. I'm hanging out - I've been on vacation since April - and on racing vacation since May with all of these injuries. Last night, we went to Blade II. Lots of sword-swinging, guns, loud music and blood - pretty cool if that's what you're looking for. Did you know that Smurfs were invented in Belgium? The Dukes of Hazard will be on tv on Sunday.
Reading big Johnny's DrunkCyclist.com, it sounds like the tempers all flaring a bit on the Phoenix group rides. Weekend warriors venting and beating their chests in any venue they can find - Like those parents who get in fights over their kids' sports. I guess that Phoenix's favorite cyclist-freeloader Jim Webtser was part of this one. Maybe his karma is running a bit low.
6/13/02Give the page a "shift-reload" if it doesn't look different than the last time you were here... Added some "life". Let me know if it doesn't work - tell me what browser you are using if that happens - I have tested it with Netscape 6 so far.
Ben's parents are in the house for a visit - They run this comany in Colorado called SmartWool. They have been hooking us up with cool wool products - socks, watch caps, undershirts, gloves - all year. This stuff is nice. I especially like the watch cap. If you need some warm, non-itchy wool stuff, check them out at SmartWool.com. The socks are sweet too - super-soft. Thanks to the Dukes for all the team support - word is that they are going to sponsor the team even more by purchasing race radios.
Finally got over the illness on Tuesday - Holy shit! That was a rough one! Don't even feel like a bike-racer anymore. Couldn't ride with the fever and all - didn't feel like moving anyway. Here we go again - back on the recovery trail.
Went to Brussels for the day yesterday - we were suppoed to race there, so we went to sign in so that the team would not get fined for not having enough riders. Anyway, we wandered around all day and saw alot of Brussels - You could probably mistake it for just about any old, East Coast city. Lots of ugly stuff from the trains and subways, a crazy variety of people, tourist scams all over the place. We went up into this famous and strange-looking landmark called the Atomium. Its a atom-looking structure made of big, silver balls connectd by tubes with escalators, stairs and an elevator. The balls are sort of a 50s era museum full of old house furniture. Pretty boring. Got a nice view from the top ball, though.
We also visited an auto museum called AutoWorld - Its a huge building that was used from maybe 1920-1960 for auto exhibitions. The had a fantastic collection of very old autos from around the world. Cars and motorcycles were dated from pre-1900 to a few from the 70s. Most were from 1920-1950. Pretty cool to see actual cars from that time period. Some of those contraptions looked downright spooky. It was interesting to see Cadillac's humble beginnings! The Delorean was pretty cool too. They also had a room full of horse-drawn carriages, and several firetrucks. I am by no means an auto-officianado, but they had so much variety, it is hard to imagine them not having at least one of the classic cars from 1900-1960...
Final tourist stop was the Maneken Pis and his sister. This is a little statue in the middle on Brussels of a little dude that pisses continuously. There is a whole tourist business built up around this little guy! Apparently, the thing to do is to sneak over there at night and dress him up in some outrageous outfit. The surrounding streets are full of stores hawking all varieties of little-pissing-guy souvenirs. Next stop is a less traveled alley where you can find the maneken pis's sister - janaken pis - yep, little girl squatting for all of time... Call Penthouse... Gotta love the Belgian landmarks.
One guy bought the new issue of the American Playboy the other day - Curt Schilling made the interview page - I thought it was cool when I saw him in a Penthouse interview. Congrats Curt - all the old neighbors are proud of you.
6/08/02Not in Italy - almost flew down to Italy today - Housing plans fell through and I had to scratch that plan. A little under the weather anyway - raced a nice kermis last night. Developed a hell of a fever and had some crazy muscle spasms afterwards!??! Was also cramping for about the last hour-and-a-half of the race! Whole body aches this morning - Am I half-way to 32 or something? Had a pretty good race, anyway - form is returning - rode pretty agressively and didn't implode after the first attack.
This week - maybe a 1.5 (pro teams) on Wednesday with some other team and then an important 1.6 race on Sunday. The 1.5 should be interesting - haven't done one of those yet - it'll be a good experience. Guess its over near Brussels.
6/02/0221 yr old guy who apparently hasn't ever lived on his own: So Mike wants to make some decaf in the coffee maker - Asks Ben how to do it - Harmless enough - Ben says, "Pretty self-explanatory, dump in the water, put in the grounds, turn it on". OK - Mike asks why it is spilling all over the place... "Is it on? How much water did you put in? Don't worry about it..." Upon going over to the kitchen, I discovered that Mike was pouring the water directly into the filter, rather than the water resevoir... We weren't that suprised.
Beer bongs - Belgians, the world's most sophisticated beer drinkers - I asked a couple of them if they knew what a beer bong was. They have never heard of them! I might have to make the first beer bong in Belgium - Maybe slam 4 Chimays in record time! If you don't know what a beer bong is, or need one, check out this web page: The Gentle Art of Beer Bong Construction If you're the scientific-type, check out The Beer Bong Analysis
Ok, what about the race? Still trying to get the legs to come around - Felt ok for the first half, but wasn't climbing like a race winner - Couldn't hang with the front group on the longer 3km climb at around 100km. Those things were steep! Pretty depressing to be climbing some wall, wondering when it will end, only to see a 2km to go sign! Hopefully a couple more races will bring me back into form.
Need to know why coffee or a bicycle is better than a woman? Why you should not be/get married? Check here