Friday, May 4, 2007

Died and Went to Heaven

I have finally arrived in Belgium! The plane flight was pretty horrid. Just about every plane connection had a problem or was cancelled all together I woke up at 3:45 am on Wed. and got to the house in Izegem at 6:30 pm Thur. night. So that would be the "death" part from the title of this blog. But Belgium is heaven.....

The house is pretty cool. It is pretty much geared to cyclists every demand. The beds are comfortable and there are plenty of showers and bathrooms for all. The riders themselves make breakfast and lunch. And then Noel's wife (Ells i believe- haven't met her yet) makes dinner.

I got my bike all set up last night, and rode easy on a trainer for about an hour. Today I actually hit the roads of Belgium, and they are pretty interesting. The roads are narrow and the bike paths on the sides of the roads are basically the side walks, but the cars here don't seem to go as fast as the cars back home so its not too bad. We pre-rode the race course for tomorrow this morning. The course consists of eight loops and I think it will be about 130 km of racing.There is a "cobbled" climb in the middle of the loop so I got my first taste of riding on the cobbles, and they are definetly pretty rough. Everyone is going to be fighting for a six inch wide gutter on the right side of the road which is the only smooth line up the climb. The corners for tomorrow's race are really slick and oily (one of the riders went down today on one of the corners) so there will be plenty of crashes. Add the constant wind that blows in from the coast and we should have one hell of a day tomorrow. I can't wait though, I am so stoked to get in there and mix it up....

I actually get a rub down from a massager, but its not the bomb shell belgian or swiss girl i was hopeing for, its a guy from US Cycling..... but hey you won't here me complaining

(I am pretty sure there are a couple of errors in spelling but bear with it because the blog website is in German while I am over here, so it is tough navigating this website to update it and put pictures on it)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pat helped me to get on your blog site. Oh, and thanks for the shout out in the newspaper. Oh wait, there was no shout out. I saw your dad at S'bucks on Wednesday-he told the saga of your trip. Yikes! Glad you made it-we hope you win a lot of races! RT & MT and little D

david said...

Take it to them, watch out for the wind and the eschelons, big gear over the cobbles, and take the race to 'em.

Anonymous said...

Dude i bet europe sucks, i feel bad that you have to stay there for a month.
did you solve taylor's rubik's cube on they way there? its sounds like you had plenty of time.
so if belgium is heaven, what's bakersfield? oh yeah probably hell
oh yeah and you have a 79% in history still, even without the three notebook grades.

Anonymous said...

Hey GVH....we are so proud of you and glad you FINAllY got there safe....I know how that travel goes! Have fun, stay safe and learn. Great article in the paper and B town is rooting for you. And remember, if you ain't 1st, your last. Give em hell and keep us posted.

Sam and the gang

Randy Scholl said...

Hey Grant, just wanted to say hello. We have been enjoying your blogs. We,re all proud of you back here in sunny B-Town. It sounds like you are learning from your experiences, and with a little luck you will be on the front attacking again.

The boys from Country Tire