He who finishes, finishes with a good result...

..Is what someone once told me, and what I'm starting to learn as well.

I apologize in advance for the lack of updates this past week. I experienced my first shell shock of Belgium cycling last week. 

Stage 1

Tour de Namur, the last thing I wrote about, was rough. My legs, inexorably, felt like shit the second day after my twilight trauma and bonking episode I was fortunate enough to experience on the opening stage. I got dropped on the 3rd of 4 climbs and then to make matters worse, I ran into a police motor bike while in the grupetto. That hurt. After going down, I managed to finish the stage-50K to the end-but was outside the time limit. All in all, it was my initiation to a Belgium stage race. I was pretty bummed; I think one of the worst feelings in all of cycling is not being able to continue to race while your teammates do. Well some of them. The next day, it was raining and 2 more riders from the team abandoned during the 130km trek. The team finished with 3 riders out of six. 

Ingrid the medic coming to the rescue

Anyways, we stayed in the Ardennes, in the south of Belgium, at Luc and Ingrid's second house, which was probably one of the highlights of the weekend for me. The scenery was straight out of "Band of Brothers" from the Battle of The Buldge in Bastogne, although I was told Bastonge was about 60 kilometers south of the house. Still, I could imagine what the real thing was like-horrific.

I took two days off after that and was able to visit Brussels with Luc's sister and her family. It was pretty cool seeing the Grand Place, enjoying a Belgium Waffle, and having one of the best beers I have ever had. Surrounded by tourists, backpackers, and fellow Belgians, it brought me back to the days of backpacking last fall. It was a nice break from the usual routine of training every day. Oh yeah, the waffles and chocolate here are awesome!

One of the best Waffles. Ever. 

I tried to capture the sunset in Brussels but this is the best I got. Sun. Belgium. It's worth the picture. 

Please Just turn...

Today, I did a kermesse about 15km from our house, close enough for Matias and I to ride over. The day, however,  started with a little hiccup. After about 5-6 minutes of riding, I heard a big CLACK noise as I went over a speed bump. At first I thought I got a flat tire but after giving both tires a visual and "bunny hop" check, they were fine. Or so I thought. A little while after, I saw the back tire wobbling all over the place. It turns out I broke a spoke on my wheel and had to ride the last 10KM with rubbing brakes. No wonder my legs felt bad riding over there. 

Luckily, I was able to borrow a wheel from a teammate and the legs felt much better after that! Our team had a lot of riders in the field~14 I was told, although it I don't think we took up that much room. The race started fast but I was feeling good. In the first five laps,  two other teammates and I were either at the front or off the front in the breaks. It was hard but manageable. However, nothing would stick. After about 7 laps of doing this, I started to get tired and from this point on, it was all about staying in our now depleted group. 

A lot of yelling occurred in the race. As usual, I had no idea what the riders were saying, which was fine with me. It's actually kind of funny , " J'eh da les flagrant c'est e$#@#$$". I'm exaggerating of course, but not really. Some of the time, I just had to laugh to myself. I think after I would yell "What?", they realized I didn't speak French and would shut up. Of course, I'm pretty sure they had no idea what I was saying as well when, for the 47th time, a rider would open up a gap or BRAAAKKKKE going into a turn and I would yell some encouraging profanity. Speaking of braking into turns...HOT DAMN! Think of a Slinky Dog. The front of the group stops at full speed going into the turn, while all the riders behind the front are still gliding into the turn. This is intentional, as I am beginning to observe. Or so it seems. Then, BAM BAM BAM, the front 2-3 riders will accelerate extremely hard out of the turn WHILE the back riders are slowing down going into the turn. The result- a lot of pain. And this happens on every single turn, regardless of whether it is actually necessary to brake or not. 

Back home, this may seem, or appear, quite common in races. Hence, the exhortation, "stay at the front". 

This is an entirely new level. 

Imagine doing that for 3 hours. After a while, it starts to wear on you. Add on that if you are off the front, in the wind, chasing down riders, your a bit more fatigued half way through the race. This race taught me that lesson. Pick a good line, stay at the front, and try to minimize braking as much as possible. 

So....with about 2.5 laps to go, I was tired and lost contact with the front group. I think my early efforts eventually took their toll. But, I still finished ahead of a many riders and got some good prize money as well. Oh yeah, it was cool hearing the cheers and my name out there. Super cool!

Funny moment of the race: After the race was over, a jolly Belgium man with a blue striped shirt, beer in hand and cigarette in mouth, started to talk to me in very fast French. I, with my slowly improving Francaise, managed to squeeze into our conversation, "I'm sorry, I'm from California and I speak English and Spanish, but my French is bad", all in French of course. He had a big smile on his face and started to talk again very fast. And then he gave me the thumbs up and returned to the beer line. I think that's a good sign. 

Pictures(I know they are out there) to follow.