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Hello again,

It has been a funny few days. Since i last reported we spent 3 hours lost while riding, we have no rain before 12pm and nothing but rain after and the cows have finally been let out of the sheds where they are kept over the winter months, so once again europe is starting to look like home.

So a little story just to get things going. Wednesday morning, Maik who we are with in Holland goes into hospital to have his tonsils taken out so they advise us to ride on the wind trainer so we don't get lost. Well Josh and I looked at each other and thought 'nah we are ok, it can't be that hard'. How wrong were we! Kinda half expecting to get lost anyway we headed out and after 30mins of riding we were officially lost! We preceded to spend the next 2 and a half hours going in every direction but home. While we were taking left, rights and straights at every intersection, and believe me there are a lot of intersections, we wern't sure whether we would be home in time for dinner. Anyway we got home 2 and a half hours later, but it turns out that if we had of taken the first right instead of left we could have been home in 20mins. I think the Wensink family were rather impressed. It was just lucky i saw a sign to "Aalten" pointing right just as we were about to turn left so i guess it could have been worse.

The other thing we have learnt is to train earlier than usual because almost everyday it rains almost spot on 12 and doesn't give up until half way through the night. Not sure what time exactly as i am usually well into my sleep by then. I have also been informed that snow is on the forecast for Holland on Monday so i think it's safe to say it's time to go back to Belg. I'm about as excited as a gay prisoner at shower time to go home because i think the weather is finally favourable down there. I thought it was unusually cold, this was confirmed when a wise old man told me this was the first time that snow had fallen in March/April in 6 or 7 years. Although i can't complain now, it was a very different story when i got here, as you can see in the photos.

So i have just been sitting here sifting the world wide web and trying to listen to the dutch talk about The 'Ronde van vlaanderen' or the 'Tour of Flanders' which is due to take place in northern Belgium tomorrow. They are all throwing round the name "Flecha" which in spanish means the arrow, anyway he will start as favourite but it's going to be cold and snow warning has gone down, and with the cobbles i guess anythings possible. Best of luck to Guddy who will be the sole Kiwi present. No time to sit round and watch it though as by the time it starts i will be continuing my road to form with another Kermesse in Germany. This one is slightly bigger than last week with 500euro (or roughly $1000) up for first place so i presume there will be a lot of motivated guys. No fewer than 3 Kiwi's will take to the start with James Dobson, who is racing in Germany, joining Josh and I. Will have a report up after, duno how much you can write about a 2km circuit ridden multiple times however.

I have also been contacted by a journalist from Ghent, which is a bit north from Pepinster, and he is coming round on Monday to do an Interview for a magazine here in Belgium. Not sure quite how he got hold of me but it should be good. So That's all my excitment for the week. Maybe next week will be more exciting as we are back in the hill's.. which means fast decents. Don't worry Abbi, helmets will be worn :]]

Actually a report won't be up until Wednesday because that's when our adsl gets turned on at home. But i will pre-write it and pop it up at some stage. Hope everyone is doing real well.

That's all for now.

Ryan

Ps. John, SRM will be running in a few days, just waiting on new cable from logs.