It's Sunday again already, doesn't time fly when you're enjoying yourself.
So it was a very leisurely breakfast, I'm still the only guest at the moment, and you should have seen the size of the custard filled croissant that was at my table this morning. I did um and ah as to whether I should eat it or not for at least a nanosecond, it was delicious but I was still feeling it on my stomach 2 hours later!
I did 2 hours at easy endurance pace (lower half of my endurance zone) and for the first 30 minutes I could really feel that flipping hill in my legs. I tried some new roads today which always make a ride go by quickly. Saw one enormous club group all out in a blue strip, there were at least 60 of them, I counted as best I could, complete with a sag wagon, they do look impressive all decked out in club colours. There were plenty of smaller groups as well, diving in and out of the tiny little lanes.
There were family groups out and about doing their Sunday bike rides and a number of horse riders which I always try to give a wide berth to, horses and bike riders don't mix well, although perhaps Belgian horses see more bike riders than your average horse. Better safe than sorry for me though.
There were also an inordinate number of team cars on the road today, all travelling in the same direction, as far as I could work out they were Continental Pro teams, I definitely spotted Baden Cooke's Vaconseil ? Bodysol, Shimano neutral service cars plus some others I'm not familiar with, I'm not sure where exactly they were going but I wanted to watch the last stage of the tour anyway.
Cleaned my bike again today ready for another race tomorrow afternoon, which is unfortunately going to clash with the big post tour criterium in Aalst tomorrow evening. I notice that they have Robbie signed up to appear, not that these thing are real races more celebrity events. But the 80,000 strong crowd had a ball last year and cheered everything that moved, I hope I will be able to get there for some of it at least.
I was reflecting on yesterdays race while I was riding today, deciding that I was pleased with myself getting over that rotten hill and staying in the race. However there was one thing after the race that made me chuckle to myself again this morning.
After each race you have to hang about for a bit to claim your prize money, they need to get the photo finish sorted out and all that good stuff, nobody gets paid until the result is 'official'. Wasn't an issue that I had to wrestle with too much last year but I seem to be doing better this year. So sign on and pay out was in the obligatory bar, I had got changed and cleaned up and was having a coffee sitting in the sun outside the bar chatting to some ladies who were the wives of other racers. One of the guys came up and said something and his wife said I was Australian. To which he said ah yes you were in the white jersey, to which I said yes. He then told me that I peddle too low a gear, same as I was told last year, to which all I could do was my best Euro shrug and nod, its true I don't try and mash the monster gears that some of the boys do in these races. Then I had a thought and asked him what position he finished, he said 11th (I think) So I suggested to him that perhaps he was pushing too big a gear, he didn't really know how to respond to that so we both had a good laugh.
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