Day 3

Well I think I could write a book about today's ride, but first I'll relate a little 'incident' at breakfast this morning. Breakfast consist of the usual continental European fare of a selection of breads, cheeses, cold meats, boiled eggs, yoghurt with cereals for English or Anglophile guests and a large tray of croissants, plus this morning a large tray of chocolate croissants.

Well like most bike riders I can eat! Indeed I sometimes feel a little guilty with the amount of the buffet that I can put away. This morning there were three large gentleman at breakfast, they were Germans but that's not really relevant. Now these tray's of croissants had at least 10+ on each, I didn't see them disappear but I did have to pay attention when Madame Host 'got' into these three guys, my German isn't good but with the tone of the harangue and the 'hang dog' look of this group I deduced that all the chocolate croissants had disappeared into them and there were only 3 ordinary croissants left, not to mention the damage they had done to the cheese and meat trays. I was quite impressed that they had demolished this lot so quickly my hostess certainly was not as she spent the next 10 minutes 'tut tutting' around the restaurant as the three guys slunk out.

Where to start with today's ride which was certainly a day for keeping my wits about me. Men with wheel barrows, ladies on shopping laden bikes, ladies with mobile phones! packs of school children with and without police escorts to mention a few of the hazards on the ride, everyday is different. In deference to tomorrow's 'Berg' prize I opted to ride towards Oudenaarde, the nearer to the town you get the hillier it gets, I thought I would do a couple of 100% intervals as well to get my body prepared for some race efforts.

I wasn't sure how my legs felt at the beginning of the ride but the further I went the better I felt and without meaning to I was really pushing on, I had to keep telling myself to back off. I did the intervals at 125% and they felt (relatively) easy.

To come back to the kids, I think today must have been the last day of school before the summer break, so all the kids seemed to be on something organised since they seem to have been led by a teacher and tailed by another teacher, otherwise they were riding in pairs. Since all the older kids where all heading in the same direction I assume that they were going somewhere specific, no school buses here, pedal power only.

I also came across a huge pack (50+) of sub 11 year olds' doing something similar, the only difference is that they had a travelling police escort stopping traffic for them, no wonder there are so many racers here, its a big part of their life.

Oh I also did my best to throw myself on the ground passing one of these groups whilst mid interval, because I had to cross over onto the road way to get around them and in doing so hit a lip too obliquely and came close to going down. How embarrassing would that have been dumping myself in front of a group of schoolgirls!!!! I was very careful with all the rough bits and the dodgy lips on the bike path after that - you have to pay attention.