Haus muzik

Happy 21st to Cousin Jo!

I'm currently preparing for an evening in Mia's cafe, where Jo, Philippe, Guido et al will take me for my first ever West Vleteren experience. I've been in heavy training, working on the Leffe Tripels (8.5%), which are still a step below the West Vleteren 12%.

Still, five or six Leffe Tripels do have a noticable effect, as we found out at our mini-house warming last week. At ridiculously short notice, seeing as we (namely Les Clarke and ik) moved in at the beginning of the week, we decided to have a few drinkypoos with anyone who was game enough to turn up. We had quite a crowd, with Guido and Lucien, Reinhard and Eve from across the road. We didn't even have enough glasses, although Guido supplied an extra one with the Petrus that he brought. Lucien brought some very interesting looking bottles that I'm sure will be appreciated, while Eve made do with three largish bottles of Leffe and a pack of Winfields. It was a varied mix.

There is something missing from the fridge
© Jeff Jones

Redressing the balance after two days
© Jeff Jones

Me with me old cast on
© Les Clarke

On Wednesday I managed to get my old cast off in favour of a new, lighter, blue one. It makes typing even more difficult, but I manage. I can also ride OK, although it's a bit hard on the back. I can put weight on the bars through the cast, and it's fairly comfy. Of course I'll stick to the flat and the Schelde or other canals. I took Les out a few times and he didn't like the wind much, or people sitting on our wheels.

I went out alone today and had a good session. Coming back into the headwind, a guy jumped on my wheel with maybe 15 km to go, and of course wouldn't do a turn, nor even let me know he was there. I hate that. Feeling in a rare vindictive mood, with about 8 km to go, I cranked it up to 35-36 and started to ride closer to the edge of the road. Eventually he complained and asked me to move left, and I looked around surprised: "Oh sorry, I didn't see you there."

I relented and moved into the centre of the road. Despite this, he was making painful swearing noises to stay on my wheel, and at the end he told me he'd ridden Omloop Het Volk for profs. Hmm, I doubt it was this year's edition. I told him I'd just broken my wrist and was trying to keep my condition up. Then he bid me farewell.

linker polsbreuk

I had to use these words a few times today in Oudenaarde hospital and police station. Yep, I finally managed to crack a bone after 34 years of trying. In this case, it's the left wrist and I have it in a cast for four weeks. I can still type at about half speed, fortunately, but it's a pain.

It being Easter Monday, I thought I'd go out for a quick morning spin before work. I hadn't planned on leaving the Schelde, but I was sucked in. It was a bit wet and reasonably quick, and on the back side of the Molenberg, I started to chase the guy in front (Luc de Loor) with another guy. We caught him on the Trap Op and kept it going, hurting a bit after not riding at all yesterday.

The descent of the Edelareberg can be a little tricky in the wet, but the cars pulling out of the cobbled side street near the bottom are always dangerous. One nudged out in front of us, stopped, looked and saw us, and kept going. It was way too late to avoid it, as it basically occupied all of our side of the road. Luc hit it pretty hard and I hit Luc's bike I think, somersaulting and landing on my left side.

Result: Luc had a big bruise above his eye, but was otherwise ok-ish. I broke my wrist, and took a bit of skin off my behind. The driver stopped and was taken away by the police for a statement. We got patched up and also gave our version of events, although I don't know if the police will understand my scrawl as it's not easy to write with a cast on. It'll probably go to court, the police said. Wot fun.

Saturday was better: 5 of us on the Trap Op, then we were caught by Patrick Middernacht and Jan Soetens (Jartazi) and one other. We had a nice rhythm going back along the Schelde too, and I felt good.

That is all.

Easter

Being Friday (and wet), I celebrated Easter by buying a 100g packet of chocolate eggs from the GB and eating them all. Lucky I did that 100km this morning or I would be huge by now. I also found some Tom Boonen gouda in the cheese section, so I bought that too. But I think it will last longer than the Easter eggs.

Happy Easter anyway. Jesus never had it this good.

The big move will happen next week, in theory. I must acquire some furniture though. Fairly quickly. There are Other things happening next week too, some of which may be fun or not.

Got up the Berendries in 2'34 on Tuesday, with a light tailwind. Only a couple of seconds slower than my best, and they only did it in 2'20 in the Ronde (going easy, with 230km in the legs), so that is good.

The bar count is up to 21, but two of those were without Reinhard. 't Galgenhuisje (smallest cafe in Gent) is pretty funny; Bloomingdales is a lounge bar underneath the cinema; and there was another small one on the Korenlei that was pleasant.

Banality

Now that I've done all my base training in one day, I've decided to ramp up the intensity in my highly structured and well thought out training program. Thus, on Monday, following an 18 hour working day on Sunday, I thought I'd take advantage of the freshness in my legs to do a 40 km time trial at 80%. Strangely it was about 5 minutes slower than I can do when I'm fit. I can't think why.

Thursday I did some hills and after getting up the Wolvenberg in 1'09, I calculated that I was at 80% of my best. So I went back down and did it again in 1'03, which was 90% and better for the moral fibre.

Today (Saturday) it was a tad windy, and it slowed things down somewhat on the hills. Trap Op was only in 6'20, as we copped the full force of the southwesterly. Of course it was somewhat quicker on the way home. In an attempt to get knees like Jan Ullrich's, I opted for some big gear training in the 13 or 12. It will probably accomplish nothing, but at least I'll be able to ride around in big gears like all the Belgies do in the races. That's gotta be worth a few ruined knees.

It was also good to burn off a ridiculous meal that Reinhard cooked last night. After struggling through it at a pedestrian rate, I asked him the quantities of ingredients. Half a kilo of uncooked fetuccini (which we did cook) and three quarters of a kilo of chicken (ditto), and we ate it all. So I should have enough spare protein to repair all the damage I did today.

The cafe count is rising to 17 after we hit the Belga Queen (not a gay bar) and heard a kiwi by the name of Mark playing the guitar and singing at the same time, which I think is difficult. It wasn't so bad, and was worth the price of admission (free).

Vanille jenever for a mid-morning snack (there was a stand at the start of Gent-Wevelgem) is warming but it can make your head spin. Be warned. I guess you should drink four or five trappists first.

I could have theoretically ridden the Paris-Roubaix cyclo-sportif today, but I didn't. Even theoretically. It's only every two years so maybe I'll do it in 2008. It's all flat so it should be easy.

The Ronde

I survived, as did Jo, and even wrote this last night:

Riding the 'real' Ronde.

My poor bike!

I'll have to rename this blog JeffJonesCorp^TM to reflect its new, more international status. It's still going to be all bilge, all the time.