Belgium Day 1

Pardon my less than original title, but I'm trying to save all my creativity for my Cyclingnews Journal entry later this week. I did finally make it to the house here in Izegem after a pretty terrible travel day yesterday. I was supposed to get in at 8:15 AM and ended up getting in at 10:00 PM. I had cancellations, delays, missed connections and weather issues. And it seemed like there was an ever present Euro couple publicly displaying their affection for each other practically on my shoulder. Pissin' me off a little bit.

When I got to Izegem, everything was covered in a fresh layer of snow and all the people at the house were asleep. I found my room and went right to bed since I had basically been up for 30 hours or so. I slept like a rock. I woke up an 9 AM Belgium time, did breakfast and then watched the mechanics build and dial my bikes. The mechanics seem like good guys, so nice that I almost feel guilty making them work on my stuff. Steve Fisher, Jerome Townsend and I went for a ride on the "roads". Some of them were more like narrow ice skating rinks. Steve was the only one to crash, but lots of close calls and two wheel drifting.

It constantly smells like something... either cow poop, some kind of grain, or a bakery. We also rode down the famous Canal Path and stopped at a coffee shop/ bakery. It seems like the snow is here to stay for the near future, so the World Cup should be awesome. I've got a strategy for adding some pictures to this post, but I'm not sure if it's gonna work, so if they don't show up, you'll understand. Maybe racing a race for openers tomorrow. Haven't decided yet, so maybe tomorrows entry may be a race report... YOUR FAVORITE!

Thanks for reading, silly Americans.