Snow is what’s happening here in Belgium right now.  It’s not supposed to snow in Belgium, and it doesn’t very often.  For all you Western Washingtoners, it snows considerably less in Belgium than on the West side of our state.  So there aren’t many snow plows, roads are bad, the airport has closed a few times… you get the picture.

First off you should check out my entry for the EuroCrossCamp cyclingnews diary that I wrote yesterday.  That should bring you up to speed on the yesterday’s “race”.  Now for today’s race.  We had to get up super early to start our drive to Kalmthout because of the poor road conditions.  I was not digging on more snow after yesterday’s experience, but once I got out on the course it was quite fun and I was pumped I had a decent race on the technical course with quite a few fast and short stair runs.  I finished in 34th place on the lead lap and I’m pretty happy with that.

The roads had improved quite a bit so we made it back to the house in time to watch the elite men’s race on tv and it was spectacular.  Especially the last lap, so when crosstube.net gets the video up you should definitely check it out.  Please ponder this:  Is Sven Nys the Real Slim Shady?

“That last lap crash didn’t bother me. Nobody could pass me, even if it meant that I would have to go through the last corner at 60 km/h. These are extreme conditions and that’s when the real Sven Nys stands up, even though it was really cold.”

I’m planning on trying to give updates here every other day, or maybe everyday that I race.  I promise that there will be interesting pictures too.  Cause I’ll be real, those are much cooler than many of my words.  Last but certainly not least thank you to all of those who have made this trip possible for me!

-Steve

So the big show is all done and the knot has been tied on the bow.

World’s are over and I have returned to the stateside to find that everything is generally the same. I’m glad the world that I have left has not changed itself too much on me.

So, back to Worlds. Hoogerheide is a nice little town and it just so happened that the course actually wound itself through mainstreet, used an overpass, and the street below. It was a supersized flyover, World’s proportioned. I found the course to my liking. It was really fast, with lots of turns and plenty of steep drops to make things interesting. The days prior to the race, the ground had been thawing at around noon from an overnight freeze, so I knew tire selection would be key and I ended up running the tried and true Challenge Grifos and they worked really well. On race day, the course was frozen, but as the race progressed, the ground softened up, but did not thaw and become a slippery mess so that was great.

On to race day. The morning was like any other really and we headed on out to the course the usual 2.5 hours before start time. The course had not changed conditions wise and I was very happy.

At the line, the call-ups were not as great as they could have been. The call-ups are based on the World Championship ranking of the nation’s top three riders the year before, and as we all know, was a learning experience for the majority of us. The last row is a lonely place to be at a large race. This year we had starting lights for the start and that was really fun. It reminded me of a Superprestige which is famous for starting riders using this technique. I loved the starting official saying, “Riders, hold your postition, do not push the line” about three times before the lights went off. I know that I made up at least 4 feet on that starting line grid, a personal best. The start went off well and going into the holeshot, I found myself not in dead last. I finally got my starts semi-dialed! It was crazy going into the first section of field and just before the green flyover, I had to hop a bike from a crashed rider. It just frosts my ass knowing that somewhere out there, there is a photo of me doing this. It was pretty rad. I gained 3 or 4 positions when I did this too, for it had created a bottleneck and this freight train don’t stop for nothin’! Once things settled down, I found a group to ride with and as the race progressed, I made started to make up positions and hunting down riders here-and-there.

                                           Photo Courtesy of Joe Sales

I was feeling really good and I was glad that the engine was firing on all cylinders. Looking at the race laps, I actually got faster as the race progressed. For once, there were no mishaps during my race and I had some fun on the bike. Coming across the line, I felt gassed and finished in 38th place.

I’m glad that there were a lot of supporters out there cheering me on. I definately say that they did help me gain motivation. In the states, the cheering can get a bit excessive, but after a month of racing without any, I missed it. It is easy to slip when you have no one out there cheering you on and letting you know that there actually is somebody out there who cares for you and wants to see you do well.

My parents came out for the race and it was nice to see them after a 35+ days. They are my biggest supporters, and props to CJ out there. He takes super-fanning seriously.

                                   My Pops and I

                                                      My Boy CJ

Thank you to all who helped me out in some way or another this season and I look forward to continued support and racing!

Thanks,

Eric

So after such a long time making the team house my very own house, I will be packing most of my stuff up tonight and moving out tomorrow. The time here has had it’s high’s and it’s low’s, but I know as a whole, the trip has been really fun. A life experience in which I am extremely lucky to have had the chance to live.

Yesterday, NIck and I went on a really nice training ride and rode some new roads and simply got lost. If we had not traveled back on the farmroads with Noel after the race on Saturday, I think Nick and I would still be out there. We still got lost anyway and a really nice woman at a quiet bakery gave us directions back to Izegem. I love all the nice people you get to meet when you are lost.

So tomorrow, we’re going to Hoogerheide. Big time.

So I’m making the final preparations for Worlds right now. Just doing some resting, catching up with those back in the States, and mentally preparing myself for Saturday. I’ve been enjoying a  daily afternoon nap and everything is pretty swell.

The weather was nice today and riding is enjoyable. I still am enjoying new roads to ride on around the HQ. There are just so many roads to ride. I thought by now I would have gotten to know them like the back of my hand, but I guess not so.

On Wednesday, Joe Sales and I took Nick out motorpacing and then spent the day in Bruges. This time around it was sooo much nicer. It was still only 3 degree celsius out, but I’ll take it over -3 any day of the week. We enjoyed a nice lunch and climbed the bell tower to the main church in town and saw Bruges and beyond. It was quite amazing. There were even arrows pointing to towns and countries with their distance in Kilometers all around the perimeter. We got caught up there at 2, and endured 10 solid minutes of bells before we got to the two dings for 2′O clock. The system was impressive. To get to the top, we climbed something like 500 veritcal on these winding stairs. Even my legs were quite tired, but it was well worth it.

                                                 Nick out on the Roads

I raced last Saturday in Zonnebeke, a town 25 minutes away by car. It was a really nice town and the race was appopriately named Kasteelcross or Castle Cross for it was held all within these tall walls. The start was over a km of road before a 90 degree right to an uphill road section to bam! mud. I had a good start for me and the traffic was horrendous upon hitting the mud. It wasn’t a friendly mud, but a sticky, goopy kind. I rode a solid race for me and enjoyed no mechanical mishaps and finished in 18th.

Sunday was spent taking it easy and trying to figure out how I recieved so many cuts and marks on my body I had recieved from the race the day before.

Today, I enjoyed a nice easy spin and went to three bike shops, but all were closed. The Monday blues! It would have been icing on the cake if they had been open. I wasn’t really expecting them to be open, so I wasn’t bummed.

I finally captured the cat on film after many unsuccessful attempts. The beast has been tamed!

                            I wouldn’t be surprised if it were half raccoon. Take a look at that tail!

The pre-world’s camp has officially started, so we are doing these morning walks starting at 7:45. They are nice since you get some fresh air, stretch the legs, and wake up a bit in the morning’s crispness.

Across the street, the sidewalk is being torn up and I found it funny that our neighboor set up so he made sure the worker made absolutely no mistakes in tearing up his front doorstep.

                          I don’t really see the need to dig it all up, but whatever!

It was a fun course out there today, reminded me a lot of World’s last year minus the super-steep drops. It had rained the night before, so the course was nice and muddy, a nice change from previous days.

I got off to a slow start and really never recovered. I found that if I “red-zoned” it, I would make small mistakes and lose time that way, so I pulled the throttle back a little bit and focused on cleaning everything, running the sections that would be faster to run, and other small discrepancies. I feel I rode smoother and faster in the latter laps of my race, but I won’t really know until I can get some lap times, we were wearing ankle transponders. It was one of those courses that it was better to properly set up for a corner, or else you would bog down and just lose time in stopping and running, or worse, falling on your tail as I found myself doing one lap. I dismounted on an off-camber and both my feet slipped out from under me and I slid on my chest downhill. Embarrassing! I made sure not to do that again!

Even though I finished up in a disappointing 47th, I had a lot of fun out there. It’s been a while since I have seen mud!

I went out on yet another nice ride today. It was really fun and the weather was favorable for riding in.

I’m finding all sorts of good loops to ride in. No more of this “left turn, right turn” stuff for me!

I found myself close to the windmill and immediately thought of the fun rides Ian, Steve, and I did during camp last year. We had some good times.

Life around the house has been nice. Yet another face has piled into the big house, good ol’ Joey Sales. I was happy to see him roll up this afternoon. So now we’ve got a grand total of five under the roof. Getting rediculous up in here!

So, I made my own version of the koogle today, this time with just the egg noodles, eggs, cinnamon, and raisins. I microwaved it for ease and the end product was quite nice and tasty. I put more egg in this time, so it was more of a quiche. Good stuff! I just remembered how much I enjoy eating eggs.

The cinnamon makes it look gnarly, but the opposite was true.

We’re going to do some recon of the course in Roubaix tomorrow afternoon. I’m getting nervous thinking about it right now! I want Sunday to come so I can just throw down and have a good ride that I can be really happy with.

Mo fo later

E

I awoke this morning to a nice amount of rain already on the roads, but I didn’t let it get to me. I’ll take a wet tail to frozen lungs any day of the week. At least I could ride outside. Things are pretty smooth sailing around the house. I’ve been doing a lot of writing recently, so I’m sorry about the short post, I think I may just get some carpal tunnel soon!

                                         Oh yeah! Positives again!

On Saturday, We’ll be making a field trip to Roubaix to preview the World Cup course we will be racing on Sunday. As of right now, my legs are feeling up to the challenge and I can’t really wait for the chance to get out there and butt some heads with the World’s best riders again. Time to make up for my disappointing race in Zolder. I want to make this one count.

Luke Keough arrived at the house today. He doesn’t appear to be too jet-lagged from his travels. Apparently, he had a sweet set up like me and was able to sleep on his flight over and he arrived this morning in Brussels. Zach will be here within a couple of days too, so all of us racing the World Cup will be here. Nick will be the only U-23 racing for America and Nick, Zach, and I will be representing the Juniors.

Thanks for reading and what do you guys want to hear more about? Give me a shout out!

E

Never in my wildest dreams have I thought that I would be so glad to have weather just above freezing! Today’s ride was BEAUTIFUL. My ride was so nice, capitalizing beautiful is not an exaggeration.

The sun was shining, the temperatures were hovering around 1.5, the roads were dry, and my legs were feeling good! I couldn’t have asked for any more out of today. The stars aligned and it was so enjoyable. On the ride, I rode trails by this magnificient mansion in the woods. They were dry and fast, perfect for the files I chose. Besides thinking about how much longer I had to endure the weather, I was actually looking for ways to increase my ride time. I ended up riding for an 1:45. Upon arriving at the house my hands and feet were warm!

The Belgian National Championships were on TV today. Nick thought Niels would have won, but I called Sven. For pretty much the whole race, it looked as if Sven had it bagged and tagged since Niels had a terrible start. It looked as if Sven had the race by a long shot going into the final lap, but Niels put in a solid effort and surprised a lot of people by almost catching him. He closed down a huge gap! When a video arises, check it out.

Even on top of all this, the cat did not make even a cameo appearance today!

And… I’m ranked 37th on the UCI rankings as of 1/09. Nice!

Life around the house right now is nice and low key. A very relaxing enviroment to be in.

In all my spare time, I’ve finally am accomplishing some things I haven’t been able to find time to do at home like finish outside of school classes, do some core work, and even nap!

Today was once again below freezing and the roads had iced over. It looked as if it were a day to be spent on the rollers, which didn’t turn out to be so bad. I set them up on the porch overlooking the intersection and enjoyed the 12 o’clock lunch rush. It really surprised me how much went down on this intersection from 12 to 1 in the afternoon. There were hordes of kids riding their bikes home for lunch, old ladies walking down to the bakery to pick some fresh bread up, people not yielding, buses trying to fit down tiny streets, and even a guy driving a big wheeler who cheered me on when he saw me riding. There were a mix of reactions on peoples faces too when they saw me. Some looked puzzled, some gave me a gesture or two of incouragement, others had no idea what was going down and looked at he as if I was bigfoot, and others simply did not notice the whirring of the bands and the geeky cyclist on the stationary trainer, but rather focused on how crappy and cold their ride home for lunch was. About halfway through the ride, whenever I made contact with somebody, I decided to give a friendly wave or a smile with a nod. About half of these gestures were met with no reaction at all. I guess there’s a lot of S.A.D. going down in Belgium at this time of year.

Good news though, my legs are finally feeling somewhat “normal” again after all the racing which has gone down. My body was beat!

I shaved my legs yesterday and now they are looking and feeling good. It’s so weird to feel all the fabric of your pants when you are walking when there is no hair inbetween. We cyclists are weird people.

All the European National Championships are happening this Sunday, so in a couple of days, we’ll be able to see who is truly the fastest in their country. I know my attention will be fixated upon this. Hopefully, our very own national championships will some day be one this same weekend. The United States and Canada are the only two countries which really have their national championships so early (I don’t know about Japan though, they may have already had theirs too).

In other news, I stand corrected about my reporting on the Elfstedentocht was incorrect. What I had seen on TV had to have been another very big Dutch skating race because the Elfstendentocht did not occur since the temperatures in The Netherlands never got cold enough to freeze all the canals in the race. Whoops, my bad.

I can hear children’s voices in the street right now. School must be getting out. It’s really funny, but all the kids have to wear these bright orange vests when they are travelling to school. If you think about it, it really is a good idea for they are very visible at all times. The notion of taking a car to school is a little odd. The majority of the kids will ride their bikes to school, walk. and some who own mopeds will take those, but really there is no commuting to school in a car. When I was out for a ride yesterday, there were some kids coming home for lunch on their bikes and this was in the next little town over called Lendelede. It’s a good 4 3 out of town and on such a cold day, it showed me how tough these kids are. The kids in the states have to learn a lesson. They really do.

I’m going to run to the grocery store to pick up some greens and soap for my stinky tail, the house is just about out of body wash!

So it’s official, I’m simply shot. I haven’t felt this tired for a while now. After 5 races in the past two weeks, I’ve had my fill and am ready for some quality rest and recovery. I know I am ready for some high quality rest because I couldn’t sleep well last night. I get this when I’m super-duper tired. I’m not fighting it. I’m using today to recoup from all my hard effort.

So I’ll get down to the race report from yesterday. I went to bed on Saturday nIght not really knowing what time to get up at, but that was only one of my worries on my mind for I still had a dirty skin suit to wash and some shoes to clean along with getting off my feet for the first time during the whole day. Saturday was actually really fun. Nick, Brian Matter, and I went with Gregory (one of the mechanics) and Charlyn to a sweet 4 level sports store called Sportline. They had just started a big sale and Nick was looking for some booties whereas I was looking for some adventure. The place was really sweet. It had a terrible layout, but it had a section for all sorts of sports including raquetball, badminton, skiing, snowboarding, running, cycling, soccer, and others which I cannot really recall. Anyways, it was a sick place, but Nick couldn’t find any booties that floated his boat. We then rolled down to a bike shop in Izegem which had its January sale and it was a SALE! I picked up some really nice cold weather Castelli gloves for 9 euro and some Vermarc cold weather bib tights with a wind-tex front for 19 euro. Brand spankin’ new.  They retailed for 98 euro, so I scored. I was a little surprised to see a small, town shop having such discounted prices. To use an overused phrase, I would have never seen anything like that in the States. I love being pleasantly surprised every single day. Nick found two pairs of  really nice Pro booties which were 9 euro a piece since he couldn’t decide which pair he liked more. It’s nice to have options and sales. Those are great too. We still had one more stop on our excursion out and that was the grocery store. There is a grocery store located directly behind Del Haize named L!DL for some odd reason. Nick and I  stocked up on a bunch of groceries which we found to be very inexpensive while Greg, Charlyn, and Matter went to pick out some chocolate at Del Haize. When Nick and I finished up with our shopping and went back out to where we had been parked, the car was gone. Apparently Gregory and Charlyn dropped Matter back off at the house and went out to a movie leaving Nick and I leaving ourselves to our own devices to find our way back to the house. This wasn’t so much fun for we had stocked up! Leaving us only one last option, Nick and I rode the four independent wheeled shopping cart back to the house which was an adventure on its own. I worried a little what the consequences were for “stealing” a shopping cart was, but we were to return it as soon as we got the chance, which turned out to be the next morning even before we left for the race as Els found the new ride stashed away in the bike room. It was pretty funny in hindsight, but the cart was returned saftely and Nick got his euro back from the shopping car rental slot. All is good.

So this gets me back to Sunday morning again. We left around 10 to make the 2.5 hour drive to Sint Michielgestel in Holland. It was a fun drive since we traveled on some new roads which I have not seen before and once we arrived in Holland, it was a bit different than what we had been used to seeing. There were plenty of woods and we could see the hordes of dirt bikers and mountain bikers out doing their thing on the crisp Sunday morning. When I saw an ice skater on a frozen pond, it reminded me of the race called the Elfstedentocht which only runs when the canals freeze to a minimum of 15 cm. The last time the event occurred was in 1997 and in the week running up to the race, the Dutch were just going mad hoping for the ice to freeze enough to allow for the race to occur. When we arrived back home from the race and we were unwinding watching some TV, we saw the race actually did occur. It was pretty cool. Apparently, it is only supposed to get colder in the upcoming days, so there will be many more chances for these ice skating fanatics to get their fix. If you are interested, here’s a link for some more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elfstedentocht

Getting back on track (where’s my ritalin*) seeing the forest rich Dutch countryside was a great change of pace compared to Belgium’s green fields. When we arrived into Sint Michielgestel, the first thing I noticed were all the tall oak or elm trees planted in neat rows along the roads. The picturesque scenery took me off the real reason why I was in Holland; to rass mah bike. It was a adventure finding out where inscription was located as we were directed to the wrong location the first time after looking for directions and once we found it, all I did was sign in, give up my license and brown card and I got my number. They gave me my number, pit pass right there on the spot, and even provided pins with a smile! I don’t think I can race in Belgium ever again after seeing the green pastures which the Netherlands have to offer. It’s funny how nice the small things can be.

I jumped on the course and it had a nice flyover. On my first trip up,my chain decided to break on me  3/4 of the way up and I was left stranded trying to maintain a position on two feet, grab my chain, and attempt to stay out of the way for the rest of the pre-riding riders. It had to have been quite a scene to see this all go down. To make matters even worse, I was in the front of a large pack of pre-riders anxious to get on the course. There must have been 20 riders following directly behind me when this occurred. Once I got a fresh bike with a chain, I rode the rest of the course. The flyover was located about halfway through a long power section before it broke into some nice Dutch singletrack/recovery section.

When I warmed up on the trainer, I knew it was to be a long day. My legs were feeling D-E-D, dead! They were feeling so dead, the letter “a” never minded to show up to be a part of the team. I got a sweet second place call-up to the line next to Lars Van der Haar and somehow Tijmen Eising got a last row call-up, but that didn’t make too much of a difference, he still blew past me like I was soft-pedaling, which I was because we were going into some slippery chicanes, but nonetheless he blew past me. I had a position around 10th on the third lap or so when my legs decided to head to Mallorca. A little while later, I noticed my seatpost sliding around and down on me, so I rode half a lap trying to not screw it up and I then jumped on my B bike with some files on them. I tried to yell to Sis(I’m sure this is not the proper spelling) that it slipped down and around, but I wasn’t really able to tell it to him for it was a very fast pit and I probably wasn’t too coherent at the point in the race. I rode a little slower on the files until I was able to get back on my A bike and finish up with some nice Typhoons. My seat was a bit lower than what it was before and my legs were feeling it at the end of the race having all the accelerations of the course and standing to get some more power out. It’s good for me though, good training. I ended up finishing 18th in the field and I was a little bummed I could stay farther up in the field, but I was so tired from all the racing I have been doing.

I made sure to take a ton of photos of this race since it was so picuresque and I had remembered my camera for once.  It was cold and a little windy, so conditions permitted the use of a camera, so I took full advantage. Here is a link to the photos that I took: http://cid-8d10f3b963ad57da.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/Sint%20Michielgestel?nl=1&uc=91&isFromRichUpload=1

I also learned today the Dutch are faster than the Belgians. It was surprising to me at first, but it really is true. The daytrip to the Netherlands was a real treat.

So today which is Monday, the 5th, I awoke and immediately noticed there was some snow outside the window. I then proceeded lounge around the house and catch up on the things I missed doing yesterday. It is a double recovery day: a day from racing and a day from not getting any “paperwork” done. During my stay here, I’ve been able to see some very entertaining videos like this one..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n79jSzKA0L8

My feet are thrown up here on the couch and my intervals from getting up to go around the house are killing me. Nick and I did a Mr. Clean job to the kitchen. I’ve never seen it so clean in my life!

I’ve got a little assignment for anybody who is reading this, give me a comment just so I can see how much traffic is on the little spot in the net? Aight? Just remember, the whistles go woo wooo!

*Haha, just kidding. As a young boy and baby, my mom and I avoided that food colouring.