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It has taken me some time to get onto writing this next installment. To be honest i have been thinking about it for a few days now, but it has taken me those few days to get into the right frame of mind where i can just sit down focus on the tv and let my fingers do the talking. So if there is any controversy i would put it down to the fingers doing the talking!

Anyway where do i start. its probly been far too long since i last wrote something and a lot has happened since i last posted so i hope you have a strong cup of coffee and a lot of time for this one.

Last time i wrote something i was just heading off for a few days to Roeselare to stay at Logans and do some racing. Well i ended up staying a week partly due to easier travel arrangements and partly due to the thought of coming home to an empty house as Josh was in Germany. Roeselare is very nice city of around 22,000 situated in West Vlaanderen with lots and lots of little dirty farm roads to get lost on! Great and with the biggest hill 300m long it made for a change in scenary. Was also cool just hanging out and drinking coffee. As cyclists do.

I did 2 races while i was up there. The first was 118km in a town called Helchteren from memory and it was like 20min drive from Roeselare so made for a long sleep in and a late lunch just in time for a 3pm start. The race included 110 or something starters and was going well until the 3rd lap of 13 or something when i officially became the most hated rider in the race! It was rather funny, i pulled 300m on the front of the race and pulled out to the left of the road once we rounded a left hand corner so it provided a bit of shelter from the cross winds for the guys rolling over me. I encouraged this fella to come through and he had no interest so i swung back into the right hand gutter where he would not have any shelter at all and looked him in the eyes and gave him a wee smile before lifting the pace and pulling 2km on the front with him yelling 'a gosh' which is left. He had no interest in rolling through before so i would make him pay for that. I then pulled left again and he grabbed my seat and swung himself off me, which got me pretty fired up. At this stage there was 5 of us up front with everyone else in 1's and 2's trying to catch back up. A few words were shared and i rolled back past him on my way through again stopping next to him and grabbing his collar, taking him to the gutter and told him (politely of course! :]) he'd be in the paddock if he ever touched me again. Well its safe to say the rest of the race he never missed a turn and stayed out of my way.

So that was my excitement out of the race but someone had to tell him. I also made a few friends and a few enemies with this act of anger, luckily for me the commaisare or race official was behind the last rider and couldn't see anything of this encounter.

As for the result, the SRM numbers showed it was the hardest race i've done so far and i ended up 17th and a very tired boy at the end of a very hot day!

The next few days were spent cruising around the back roads of vlaanderen while very confused on how we were still going home while taking right turns every 500m, i swear we road round in circles for 3 hrs.

I also did a criterium on the Friday night before coming home. It was 70 laps of a 1km circuit. Starting at 7pm on a rather cold night i lined up with 50 other guys and straight from the gun it was on, luckily i was caffined up and could just go and go and go. Thanks redbull energy! Well to cut a long story short, i tried to get away, i failed, i tried again, i failed, Came down to a sprint. I like to stay out of the sprints and let the fast finishers do their work and save myself from potential crashes. I crossed the line 15th or there abouts and once again it took over as my hardest race to date, eclipsing the previous race from Monday.

During the course of the week i also had my first 2 bbq's of the summer. Belgian style. Charcole bbq. One with Logan and flatmates and the other with the family of Logans director. Also went to the wieler museum or bike museum where it had a lot of history and even the workshop of Belgians first ever bike builder. The week was also filled with a lot of other cool little things.

There was a race in my area where the New Zealand track team and Logan were racing on the weekend so i managed to catch some of that during the course of the weekend and catch up with the boys from NZ which was good. It's always nice to see some familiar faces when your so far away from home. Even if it was only half an hour or so.

As for now i will now try and find some winning form and see what what eventuates through the course of the week.

Will report back in within a few days to make up for the lack of postings lately.
Also some races from the week away.


Thanks for your paitence in reading this. I know its a drag but a lot was had to be said.

Thanks again,
Ryan