Santa, Cyclocross and Sand!

It was World Cup CX day in Koksijde, Belgium. The Belgians love their cyclocross so much that they even believe Santa delivers toys by cyclocross bike, of course! The Santa "monument" is actually a big ad for the coming of the World Championships in just over 2 months to the same spot, a tiny town by the coast line.

Being by the coast means sand and this course has almost nothing but sand, sand and more sand. If you think our tiny 5 meter sand "pits" in our Canadian races are much then you really haven't seen anything until you see this. Perhaps some of you watched the race today and you get an idea but seeing it live is another story. Basically, the race takes place on a series of sand dunes on a military base. The start/finish is by an air strip runway and the course weaves through some military baracks/trailers and homes. The fans were out in full force but it actually seemed less crowded this week because the setting was more spacious.

It's actually much easier to take better pictures of the U23 race since there are far fewer spectators around so the next shots are from that race.

I've been to two Pro races now and both times I've seen this fan who is a Kevin Pauwels fanatic. He goes around with this crazy umbrella with a women's head on it and all sorts of pictures of Pauwels on the umbrella.

Staying at the Chain Stay has it's perks. Normally it would cost 17 Euro to get in to an event like this. Gregg operates the small Renner team with Gabby Day from the UK and Craig Richey from Canada. We get to come in with the team van and set up with all the others nearby as opposed to a long walk and get free passes into the pits or starting area. As for the women's race, Gabby was not very confident warming up (shown below) but she had an excellent race finishing 10th in the strong field of 45 competitors.

Start of women's race by the air field about to make the first corner.

Now it's time that I get ready for my race tomorrow!

Help! My bike is lost!

Since my culture plates were incubating in the lab incubator during the day, I decided to take a sightseeing detour to Brugge, a quaint city I've been told by many is a must see . While switching trains in Ghent, I had some extra time so I went out the back side of the station and clicked a few pictures of the masses of bikes. I estimated that there were 3000 bikes based on a row count. There was even double-decker parking available and a huge full-service mechanic shop just for bikes immediately adjacent to the huge parking lot. Can you imagine downtown Kingston with 1500 bikes in one spot (Ghent is about twice the size of K-town)?

 Bikes, bikes and more bikes at Gent-St. Pieters train station (this is the Flemish way of spelling it)

Double-decker parking!

 One part of the bike (fiet=bicycles in Flemish) mechanic shop (the main mechanic shop is not shown)









Brugge was indeed a fantastic tourist spot with majestic cathedrals, small cobbled lanes, an amazing bell tower, tons of chocolate boutiques, etc. After my quick visit I had to finish off my stay with a Belgian waffle, of course, covered in chocolate sauce - pure decadence! I was going to take a picture but it was devoured too swiftly. As you can see, the weather is still fantastic - sunny everyday with fog in the morning burning off, then up to 10-15C, no wind. I took a picture of this tree - white roses growing on this! Behind it was a whole garden of red rose bushes. Is this really the end of November (sorry to my Kingston friends who had snow today)? I think I can get used to riding here all year round. Wherever I go there are groups of road riders in twos, threes or on Sundays 10-20s along the canal and of course cycling commuters everywhere.

White roses growing on a tree in late November!












Back in Oudenaarde, I headed over to the Donk for a CX skills training session. The trails were much more slick and muddy today and I came back covered in mud. I love the power washer!

Picking up the Spoils

Usually, I take the Chain Stay "clunker" bike to the train station, hop on the train from Oudenaarde to Ghent St. Peters, then take the bus to the university and finally walk from the bus stop to the lab. This has been taking about 60-70 min. Today I decided to ride my bike to work along the N60 highway, which is the most direct way, about 24 km and it took 45 min. This 90 km/h traffic route has a dedicated bike lane on the right side with a 2 meter "empty lane" left of that than 2 traffic lanes. Needless to say I feel very safe cycling here and it will be hard to go back to cycling on Hwy 15 or Hwy 2 when I return to Kingston. I didn't take a picture of this but here's just a common example of a bike lane on a major road with a barrier in between.





On my way home I decided to go back along the canal. It's a bit longer but more scenic. I decided to stop off at Asper-Gavere where the Super Prestige CX race was on Sunday to see if I could ride the course. The course was in the midst of being "disassembled". There was garbage everywhere and a crew of about 50 guys cleaning up the mess. Nonetheless, I rode around the course and got to feel what the pros were up to.

The Spoils from the race











Below is the picture of the 90 degree right turn up a nearly 2 foot ramp from a long straightaway on the bottom part of the course. I got up to 42 km/h and wasn't even forcing it. I'm sure Kevin Pauwels, Stybar and Nys were doing 50+ along here during the race.

On my way home in Oudenaarde I stopped at a few bike shops to check out the gear. Surprisingly, there are nearly no CX bikes on display; mainly commuter bikes, nice road bikes, kids bikes and some mountain bikes. One of the places builds custom made CX Lindor bikes (Lindor is the name of the shop). Back at the Chain Stay, Belle keeps us all company looking for handouts of food, foraging in our rooms or under the table for crumbs and scraps.