The future's Bright......

The future's Jonty. Well that might not be true but congratulations anyway to the new club sprint distance champion, Jonty Bright. Best of luck to Jonty and anyone else Mrs H and I know who are running the London Marathon this weekend.

Skipton Tri, my first tri of the year and a chance to see if all of the work I have done on my swim has actually paid off. The changing man has been swimming twice a week. Had lessons and focused on improvement of his weakest area. The result was a 06:30 400m swim. By no means lightening fast but far better than the 07:45 I was posting 18 months ago.

So 75 seconds may not sound a lot but it does leapfrog me over many other triathletes when it comes to the final scores on the doors. The bike was satisfactory and an 00:18:38 5Km run was good too. I wasn't sure how well I was running after recovering from further issues with the "glass feet" (this time I over-extended my big-toe joint) and the course including a bit of off-road. Not sufficiently off-road enough to induce a bit of my off-road mincing though.

Best of all, the sun shone.

Then it was time to recover. Back home to do a few chores, watch the Amstel Gold Race and make use of the new blender. Banana, malted choc powder, ground coffee, honey and milk.

Forgoodnessshakes make a big deal of their drinks but if you're "drinking from home", these appeal to the Yorkshireman in me. I read too that beer is a good recovery drink but doesn't help with re-hydration. I decided to over-look this particular pitfall and have a couple anyway.

Plus our Sundi guests couldn't make it round for tea and buns, so there were even more for us.

Recovery never tasted so good.

What goes a Rhonde.....

It was ABD's 40th last year so to celebrate this landmark event, I suggested a trip to see the Rhonde Van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders) suggesting that we ride most of the course the day before. De Rhonde is often referred to as the "World Championships of Belgium". This is one of the monuments of cycle racing with so much history attached. It really is part of the Belgian culture.

Belgium, a country very much maligned and misunderstood. It's an honest country, it doesn't try to be anything it isn't. You can drink a different beer everyday for a year. What's not to like?

Friday
Time to check in at our B&B, The Riverside Guesthouse. Then head to Oudenaarde to the Rhonde Van Vlaanderen Centrum. A museum dedicated to this one day cycle race. At the centre we got to meet "Fast" Freddie Maertens who now works as a curator at the museum and Mr Milani of Milani Bicycles. After following the story of Edvig Van Hooydoncks 1989 victory at De Rhonde, it was time for lunch.
Time to head over to Ninove to pic up the registration pack for Satdi.
A hearty meal at the guesthouse then to bed. The Riverside B&B was excellent. Very cyclist friendly and also a great location for seeing De Rhone or any of the "Flanders week" races. Nothing was too much trouble, Jan and Harriet were excellent hosts.
Tomorrow, we ride.

Satdi
Up at an ungodly hour to head over to Ninove for the start of our ride. We decided to make a brisk start to try and get away from some of the slower riders so as not to get held up on some of the climbs. There were 19000 entrants in the days ride plus many others who hadn't registered but wanted to ride some/all of the course. The official estimate was that there were circa 27000 riders out on the course.

The climbs are often known as bergs. There are 16 classified climbs, mostly cobbled plus other climbs not classified. This was going to be a real wear and tear day out on the bike. Only 140 Km to go.

The first climb was the Molenberg. This was the first cobbled climb of the day and acted as the hors d'ouvre for the rest of the day. Cobbles, the dish of the day. Molenberg, Patterberg, Koppenberg. When I asked Mrs H what her favourite berg was, she said "Battenburg".

Climbing up to the church on the top of the Muur was almost a religious experience in itself. There were many many people lining the climb to cheer you on but this would be nothing compared to tomorrows congregation. One more climb to go then back into Ninove for a celebratory beer, chips and mayo plus a sausage. A sausage? after 140km, 16 bergs, cobbles and other unclassified climbs, What's the wurst that can happen?

We even got to see a bike shop called "AR-SE Sports" and another called "Willy Sport", great sense of humour the Belgians.

A meal in Ghent that evening was enough to convince us that Ghent required another visit, or maybe we were just trying to justify a return trip.

Sunday
It's race day, the day of the "Belgian World Championships". Belgium is closed, everyone is watching on the road or on TV. Traffic is chaos, parking in Brugge is a challenge. This is the third time I've seen de Rhonde but I've never made it to the start until today. Brugge is rammed. The central squares have been taken over with the infrastructure to support the race. We get sucked into the excitement and atmosphere until we remember that we can't return home without gifts for our better halves. It's Easter next weekend and Belgium is famous for chocolate. Job Done.
The race starts, as too does ours. We're racing to the Oude Kwaremont. The third climb of the day. The Kwaremont is often said to be where the race really starts. Midway up the climb is a cobbled square with BBQ's, Bars and a large screen. This will enable us to see most of the race without having to break Belgian traffic laws getting to other parts of the course. The climbs is littered with the yellow flag of Flanders featuring a large black fire-salamander. People have squeezed into small areas of grass banking to watch the riders almost float past them over the cobbled surface. The cars coming flying past too producing a wake of dust and exhaust fumes. All that time waiting for the race and it's all done in a matter of 2 minutes. All the anticipation and excitement for 2 minutes of race is still time well spent. The atmosphere builds during the wait and then we walk into the square to watch the rest of the race unfold on the roads we rode yesterday.

Stijn doe's it again. A Brit was in the mix for a while. The sun shone. Life is good.

Race over? No, the race to the ferry had only just begun.