In other news of import, I had the front room of the flat repainted in blue and blue, courtesy of Les' anagram friend Els. Cool, eh?
Wot a contrast!© Jeff Jones
Riding wise, it finally stopped raining late last week, although not before I had seriously disturbed all of my elderly (70-75 yrs) neighbours with noise from my brand new mag trainer. OK, so I had it on the floor directly above the living room of Gaston down below, and the reverberation prevented him and Paula from being able to hear Kim Clijsters destroy the opposition in Roland Garros. I also had the window open, so various other neighbours wondered what the hell was going on too. So at Gaston's request (and he is a genial chap), I moved into the spare bedroom. I will invest in some soundproofing foam, methinks...
The weekend was almost the same as the previous in terms of kilometres, but I was slightly fitter. Saturday we averaged 39, and I managed to get the right wheel in what was a very drawn out sprint. People have a tendency to go a bit early.
Sunday was hard as usual, and again 36 km/h. Guido had a prior engagement, but Snelle Eddy was in a feisty mood and attacked several times in the first 10 km, eventually getting a bit of a gap. I thought we should let him go for a bit, because he seems to be happier when he's off the front. To my surprise, Jantje jumped across to him when the gap was still 10 seconds, but that was OK because he normally doesn't do too many turns. But then, the odds tipped in favour of the break when Piet Stevens suddenly joined them (he didn't start with us) before Mont St Aubert.
They were going away now, as no-one really wanted to chase hard before the mighty Mont. It was a good half a minute and reaching painful chasing stage, so I went harder on the false flat up to the climb and got Guy Callens with me. Thanks to AeroDescending(tm), we got them just before they hit the main road towards Tournai. We picked up Hubert, who normally shortcuts the Mont, and then we were six. Jantje stopped working after that.
We did work together for a while, but Eddy was still feisty and attacked after 40 km. I was quite happy to let him go for longer, but we ended up getting him just before Franses-lez-Anvaing. My legs were a bit cooked from the tempo when we hit Lahamaide, but I made sure I did the full climb in front this week :-) No bludging! At the top, only Eddy and Guy were left.
Guy contributed more this time, but Eddy was still clearly the strongest. He has great endurance, as well as a 15 year plus age advantage on me ;-) But I didn't quite have to go as deep on the Chapel and Quatre Vents to hold on, and still had enough to keep rolling through up to the finish. On the Hotonde, Eddy attacked as expected, but although I had to let him go a bit, the gap wasn't too big at the top and Guy and I closed it. 53x19 this week instead of the 23. Still, I found it hard to stay on Eddy's wheel when he sprinted. No contest there. The endurance definitely needs work.
On the way home, I made my habitual stop at the Oudenaarde Coke machine. I poured all my spare change into the coin slot, and it was 1.20. Unfortunately, 500mL of coke was 1.30. Dang. I had a 20 euro note and luckily there was a change machine, so I got 20 x 1 euro coins as well as the all important Coke.
Not sure if I'll make it out to Berchem next week. We'll see.
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