uitstekende weer

London for a few days next week. Woo hoo!

The weather has turned awesome, as they say in the vernacular. From 10 degrees and raining on June 1 to about 30 and sunny today. Quelle miracle.

The hard yards have paid off and I think I am non-race fit again. Unfortunately I can't race yet, due to a) a sore wrist that is getting better and b) no licence, but I'll get one for the second half of the year.

Tuesday: had to go out alone, but did the Saturday loop at a moderate pace. There was bugger all wind, and I did the 55 km in 1:32, and the Trap Op in 5'13 - fastest time for me this year, without going above 177bpm, so that was nice.

Wednesday (easy day) I set a new record low heart rate crossing the line in the sprint: 90 bpm. OK, so we weren't sprinting, but rolling along at 30 km/h. I wasn't really using my capacity.

Thursday: best day of the year as far as the weather was concerned. 100 km in 2:43, door to door. The bunch wasn't going particularly fast, so I rolled off in pursuit of four others early on. We had six for the first lap, then three for half of the second lap, then just me and another guy coming back from Eine to Gent. We weren't going that hard, but it was such a nice day that it was good to sit on 38-40, doing 1-2 km turns.

Friday (easy day) was similar to Wednesday. I caught up with Matt Gilmore, and he regaled me with a few amusing anecdotes from his days at the AIS (before he cracked and turned Belgian). He was part of the track program, training for the 4000m team pursuit. At the pre-season training camp in Mexico, they were doing 320 km training rides! They were staying at the same hotel as the PDM pro team, and every day the Aussies would pass Alcala and co. out on the road. The PDM guys couldn't believe how many kilometres the Aussies were doing. "What the hell are you training for??" "A 4000 metre team pursuit..." Anyway, these days, things are done a bit differently.

Saturday, which brings us up to the present. Rode fairly hard, but not flat out in the hills, and we had a little bit of a headwind, so the Trap Op was only 5'23. We ended up with a biggish group, with four pros today: Matt Gilmore, Kurt Hovelynck (Jacques), Wouter Weylandt (Quick.Step), and James Vanlandschoot (Landbouwkrediet). Also Matt Smith, Gab Reid, Karl Becker, Guido and a few others. Actually, by the time people had taken various shortcuts, it was basically all together along the Schelde.

At about 10 km to go, it became a full-on attack fest, and it was great fun! A couple of guys would go, then we'd chase, counter, chase again. So the group got smaller, and I tried to make sure I went with everything. At about 3 km to go, Matt G. came by and I got on his wheel, forcing Weylandt to bring the rest up. Then Hovelynck went and I thought perhaps that would be it, but Vanlandschoot chased with Matt Smith and I, so we got him. At about 1 km to go it was just the two Matts, Hovelynck, Weylandt, and we did not stop attacking. Eventually Weylandt got a decent gap and handily won the sprint, while Matt Smith came around me for second. It was as much fun as you can have without throwing up.

No Berchem tomorrow, because our UK guy (or one of them) Ben Atkins is dropping by for a chat. Look out for Eddy!

And finally, for the Quantum mechanicists out there, and I know there are a lot of youse: Schroedinger's cat is NOT dead.