Are we there yet?

I want an ice cream. Much has happened in the last week and a bit, but I won't bore anyone with the details. Well, maybe a few.

0) Work has been busy. Happy when the Giro is over. Did you know there are over 40 UCI races on this weekend?

I) It has been raining every day.

II) The cast is well and truly off, but I need to go back to ye olde hospital in Gent for a checkup next week. My wrist is still pretty sore, and definitely not up to full capacity. I can ride (carefully), but I'll get some physio on it before thinking about racing again.

III) Les and I have kept a small semblance of sanity and been eating remarkably well. But he goes next week so I'll be on my own again.

IV) Outings have been kept to a minimum, but we did go back to Charlatan last Saturday after finishing work around midnight. Didn't get until 4am, then I did 80km on Sunday morning. Somewhat tired later on.

V) Today I went out with the bunch for the first time for six weeks in the hills, while it was dry. We didn't go too hard at the start, but then wound it up a bit on the Trap Op: 5'20 with a headwind, not so bad. I took it fairly steadily on the descent of the Edelareberg...

On the Schelde, it broke up properly as there was a light crosswind. I was down in last wheel when the first couple of groups went, but eventually got across with a couple of others. We whittled it down to een mooie kopgroep van acht: Ikke, Guido, Iljo Keisse, Krijn, Patrick Middernacht, Luc de Loor, Eric Van De Wiele, and one other (a teammate of Luc's). 44.3 km/h back along the Schelde with a cross/tailwind and I was hurting a bit, but it was good training. I think Krijn got the sprint from Iljo but from my vantage point about 10m behind, I couldn't really tell. They should install a photo finish camera at the cafe there.

Een concurrent minder

Finally, I was quite shocked and saddened to learn of the death of Italian journo Valerio Riparbelli last week. Apparently he was riding with a group and was hit by a car - don't have any more details than that. I didn't know him that well, but he was a nice guy, and he was also second and third in the journo world's in 2004 and 2005: He beat me for second in '04, and I beat him in '05. He was looking forward to racing me in Austria this year, and when I said I wasn't sure if I could go because of work, he said, "Sometimes, cycling is more important."

Heel spijtig.

Vlaamse Stoverij

Les and I have been having cooking wars, but he wins most of the time because I'm happy to have someone else cook for me. However, I got my own back with my patented Vlaamse Stoverij^TM. It's based on a time honoured recipe handed down by the monks, and I cooked it for the first time on Saturday. It goes something like this:

Reagents

Meat from a hoofed animal, preferably one that's dead
Rodenbach beer
Onions
Sugar
Vinegar
Herbs (pretty much any herbs will do)
Bread
Dijon mustard
Stock cube and pepper
Oil (not Valvoline, but almost an anagram of this)

Method

Fry the onions in the Valvoline, then realise you should have fried the meat first. Add the meat while no-one is looking and fry it as well. Forget about removing the onions. It's far too late for that. You're basically doomed from this point onwards, but you may as well continue because you will starve otherwise.

Add a couple of bottles of Rodenbach, keeping one spare for private consumption. This is one of the Key Ingredients^TM. Add the salt, pepper, stock cube, herbs (I think I found some tarragon in the cupboard), vinegar and brown sugar. Do not add too much sugar otherwise you end up with quite a sweet stew which you still have to eat or you'll starve.

Don't even bother waiting until the onions have caramelised. Instead, add the bread which has been smeared with Dijon mustard, because this is basically the last thing you have to do, then you can go and do something far more useful, like work.

Turn down the heat, put the lid on, and let it do its own thing for two hours. You can stir it, but it probably won't improve the flavour. At the end, realise you haven't stirred it enough because the three slices of bread are still sitting on top of the stew. Stir like crazy until they disintegrate, then it's ready.

Results, discussion and conclusion

Consume with bread (OK, frites if you're really hard core) and more beer, which you will need to stomach the stew. Nevertheless, it was surprisingly good.

Appendix

Proficiat Tomas Vaitkus for winning stage nine of the Giro! I knew all that flat training would pay off.

Microgolf

Is what you play in a Flann O'Brien novel. It's also Dutch for the device you use to heat up all manner of foodstuffs, or blow up cockroaches if you are that way inclined, and I'm not.

The cast is giving me the pip. Away with it, I say. One more week, and hopefully that's it. Typing with it is damned annoying. Pumping up tyres is not advised.

Lucy Power sent me this link to Jan Ullrich's MySpace page. Tres hilarious. Turn up the sound!

Absolution: the West Vleteren experience

It has come to pass. Months in the planning, and all down to the last detail: my quest to taste West Vleteren beer is over. But I am sure it will not be the last time I imbibe of this holy drink, which is rated by many as the best beer in the world.

As mentioned in the previous update, I have been in heavy training for this occasion. Some moderate drinking in the early part of the week, then four or five Leffe Tripels (8.5%) on Thursday, followed by an easier day of pils consumption on Friday. That was just to ease the load on the body while keeping the levels of alcohol dehydrogenase up high. But as I found, West Vleteren 12° (10.2% alcohol) is more than just a strong drink.

We had synchronised our watches so that Philippe and Guido would pick me up in Gent at 8:15 on Saturday evening. From there it was a 15 minute drive to our secret rendezvous just outside the city, a certain café in Philippe and Jo's neighbourhood run by the impressive Mia. Nothing was left to chance, although when we arrived, we were somewhat dismayed by the number of cars parked outside. Surely they weren't all coming to drink West Vleteren?? Fortunately, it turned out to be a school play or something, and we were not disturbed until later in the evening, when a mini-horde of children came into the bar and started reading books. [Note for the Belgians: this is not common in Australia].

The café was in a very pleasant rural setting and you could appreciate the history around it. From the old wooden bar and tables to the paintings and, err, trumpets, on the walls, the ancient beer bottles in crates on the floor, the local patrons and of course Mia herself... It was another slice of Belgian culture that I could taste.

Guido and Philippe outside Mia's café
© Jeff Jones


The wall decorations were a little surreal
© Jeff Jones

Mia was kept busy this evening. Cool bar too.
© Jeff Jones

Guido and Philippe get stuck into the serious part of the evening
© Jeff Jones

Enjoying West Vleteren 12°
© Probably not Jeff Jones

While we waited for Jo and Jan (of Ronde van Vlaanderen for wielertoeristen fame), Guido, Philippe and I decided to start with the serious business of the evening. West Vleteren wasn't even on the menu; you had to know that it was served here. The monks who brew it generally forbid it to be sold outside their abbey, and if you want to buy some there, you have to queue up for hours at certain times of the day. And even then, you are only limited to two or three crates! This stuff is hard to come by.

There are three types, all of which come in plain brown bottles with only the caps to distinguish them. The strongest is the full flavoured dark one - the Abbott - which is 12°/10.2%; then there is another dark one (Extra) with a sharper taste at 8°8%; and finally there is the blond (Special), which is 'only' 5.8% and has a different taste again. We had already decided to start with the heaviest first while our palates were still functional, then work our way down.

Mia poured us out three Abbott beers with a religious solemnity, holding the bottle above the glass and moving it anticlockwise, like a priest, until the glass was full and had a small layer of foam. We clinked glasses and I drank a mouthful, slowly. This sort of beer is like a good wine in that you should hold it in your mouth to taste it before swallowing. And although I'm by no means a connoisseur, I could tell that it was different.

The flavour seemed to come in two parts: first of all, sweet as it hits the front of your tongue, then slightly sour when you swallow it. Fruity? Yes, but also very heavy as it fills your head very quickly. It wasn't just the alcohol that did that, but also the full flavour. And it stays with you, no matter how slowly you drink it. It's pretty amazing stuff, and puts other beers in their place.

Jo and Jan contemplate the West Vleteren 12°
© Jeff Jones

We hadn't gotten too far into our glasses when Jo and Jan turned up, and proceeded to play a slow catch up. The café began to get more crowded as folks appeared, including the kiddies mentioned earlier. So we moved onto the next beer, which was the Extra, although by this stage the first beer was working rather well. The Extra had a much lighter, sharper flavour, but it was still a most delicious drop. I was thankful that it was only 8%, and that I had done the necessary training, because it was still hard going.

Our party doubled in size when The Wives appeared, and things became more merrie. We had moved onto the blonds (Extras) by this stage, and these took some getting used to after the donkere bieren. They were still very good, but I'd recommend drinking them separately to the dark beers.

As the evening wore on, we moved onto the blonds...
© Jeff Jones

Guido and Philippe in the non-serious part of the evening
© Jeff Jones

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya about the raising of the wrist
© Jeff Jones

Serious drinkers: Jo, Guido, Philippe and Ik
© Jan de Roubaix

Three West Vleterens in one night was more than enough for me, and was happy to call a halt at midnight. Philippe only had one beer, so I got a lift home with him, with Guido and his wife heading back to Oudenaarde. Jo and Jan were still going by the time we left, and I hope they didn't end up like one of the patrons, who simply fell asleep on his stool.

Thank you Pater Guido and Brothers Philippe, Jo and Jan, for a full bodied, but not out of body, West Vleteren experience. Now for the Oudenaardse Einse Cnudde...

Close of play
© Jo Vandenheulen

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.

Winterreise

That's the theme of the day, as I watch the rain fall outside my window. Schubert is most appropriate. Der Leiermann always cracks me.

I hope it's not like this on Saturday, but I'm committed now. Got my entry, number, map of the course. 260 km + 10 km to Jo's place. Gunna be interesting. I've invested in some new equipment this week, i.e. a chain, cassette, chainrings, etc. But I've got a Time bike coming sometime soon, so that's going to be fun to ride.

On the property front, I've almost found somewhere to move to, and it'll probably be round the corner in the Rooseveltlaan or somewhere like that. Can get a 2 br place for about €600/month, including costs. But it's a three year lease.

Still no West Vleteren, but that will come. Last night at about 10pm, I dragged out Reinhard (who was still at work in his shop!) for a couple of beers and increased our cafe count to 15. We almost literally bumped into a couple of his friends as we were hunting for a watering hole, and they suggested the Limonada Bar, which is down a back alley near Sint Baafs, so we joined them. Different again, and very relaxed, lounge, studenty sort of place. Beer was cheap too, and that's always good.

Apparently there's now 290 cafes in Gent though. The guy who does the bar guide is one of R's customers, and he visits up to 15 a night, typcially drinking in all of them! It must be hard updating that guide every month. Very hard.

Went out langs de Schelde this morning with no brekky and suffered a bit coming back (been going fairly hard for the last two days). It was wet and there wasn't much of a tailwind coming back. Tomas Vaitkus decided to do some training and it hurt.

Klaar voor de Ronde?

I've been talked into doing the whole Ronde van Vlaanderen next Saturday. Actually, I talked myself into doing it and it was surprisingly easy. No, I haven't done a 256 km ride with 17 hills and 20 km of cobbles...ever, and I haven't (and won't have) done anything over 130km this year, but what the hell. Jo VDH has done it, and we'll start in Brugge together at the somewhat early time of 7am. Jeez I hope it ain't raining.

Today it was stinking hot. It got up to 16 in the afternoon and it felt strange. The morning was better: 7 degrees and raining, and I really enjoyed my 100km ride. For some reason - I think it had something to do with next Saturday - I decided to do some hills. Not fun in the wet. Definitely no cobbled climbs either.

The cafe count is now up to 14. This week: Marimain, In Den Turk (supposedly the oldest cafe in Gent - 1288) and another next to St Baaf's that's done up in a black and white motif. Marimain's Reinhard's local one, so we went there after the gym. In Den Turk was quite cool and has a jazz theme. And the black and white one was, at least, different.

I have still to try West Vleteren. Only then will my absolution be complete.

The cafe plan

As mentioned, Reinhard and I plan to visit all 288 cafes in Gent, although most likely we won't get that far. The count is now at 10 after we went to Charlatan (small, smoky student bar near Sint Jacobs) and then to the Dulle Griet in the Vridagmarkt - a somewhat over the top 'traditional?' cafe. I tried Achel - one of the six trappists - in the latter, and it was very strong, but not bad. Lots of sediment in it too, but Guido tells me that this is normal. I just need to try West Vleteren now, and apparently there is a cafe in Drongen where they serve it...

We also went back to the Vooruit on Wednesday for a free 'concert', but it was essentially just a jam session, which became somewhat tiresome after 15 minutes. Beer and nachos were better.

Commonwealth Games. Hmm. Well, it's lost some of its lustre since when I was a kiddie. Australia does well enough at the Olympics, so when you take out all the competition and split up Great Britain into X countries, it becomes a bit of a walkover. Still, it was good to see Benny get up in the kilo and Ryan is great to watch when he is in form. He was unstoppable in the keirin.

It has still been chilly here, so the battle is to keep warm while outside. One trick is to ride faster, because producing more power also produces more heat (a lot more, as your body is about 25 percent efficient). Better to ride at 200W than 150W, because then you'll have another 600W keeping you warm instead of 450W. But you'll run out of gas quicker, I suppose.

I put the theory to the test today as I hammered around the Saturday parcours. Trap Op in 5'18 was a minute quicker than I did on my own last week, and 20 seconds quicker than we did with the bunch on the weekend. I had a nice tailwind, but I wasn't going flat out either. Roll on spring.

Saw The Green Mile on TV. Plenty of religious overtones, as it's about a big black guy who is wrongly put on death row, and turns out to have healing powers, a la Jesus. Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan and others. Surprisingly good.

Fitter, happier, more productive

...comfortable, not drinking too much, regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)... Well, only one day a week, but the lyrics don't go like that. I haven't reached the stage of being a pig in a cage on antibiotics yet, but I'm sure that will come.

Last week was noteworthy in its greyness and wetness, and I was forced to spend more time indoors. My heart rate monitor ran out of batteries and I could not for the life of me find a replacement. Some guy at a photo shop is going to order one in for me. Easier than sending it back to Polar, I suppoge. Did another spinning class and took it easier on myself, although it's hard when you've got Rammstein's Links...2, 3, 4 to sprint to.

I ventured out on the road again on the weekend, and was mildly shocked that there was a bunch of 15 on Saturday. Roads were wet and it snowed for the last 15 km as we fought our way back into the northerly wind. I think there were only three of us left then. Col de la Trap Op: 5'43 on Saturday, 5'37 on Sunday, which is OK for this time of year. Once it warms up and people get fit, it gets down to 4'50 for that mighty ascent.

Saw Philippe and Jo on Sunday, and was also mildly shocked that they had done 130 and 170 km on that fairly ordinary Saturday. Oh well, the wielertoerist Ronde van Vlaanderen is in three weeks, so Jo will be flying for that. I think I'll choose the 150km option again.

Also saw Filip Vereecke and his other half Debbie on the Sunday ride, and they filled me in on the winter mountainbiking shenanigans. I didn't realise there was so much gameswomanship in a beach race! Debbie won her last race and finished second in the series, but for most of the races, her rival Joyce had a bit of help from a few guys, because men and women start together in those races. I don't know what the rules are in such a situation, but Debbie got her own back in the last race :-)

Drinking was kept to a bare minimum this week, although Reinhard and I did manage to get to two more cafes on Saturday. The plan is to visit all the cafes in Gent, hospital being optional. I could only stomach one beer, and that was all I had all week.

Speaking of beer, I have just read that there's a big kerfuffle going on between the suppliers of Jupiler glasses (InBev) and cafe owners. As some kind of a marketing stunt, InBev is distributing new Jupiler glasses that are 10 percent bigger than the normal ones. While this may be good for patrons, the cafe owners are annoyed, because it means they'll end up buying and serving more beer for (in theory) the same selling price, so it'll cost them an extra 9000 euros a year, roughly.

InBev reckons that they just have to put more foam on top and keep the volume of beer the same, but that's going to be difficult to teach the beer pourers. Also, they claim that more foam will protect against bacteria! That's the biggest load of bollocks I've heard. The cafe owners are not amused at all.

I must find some new lodgings.

It's the lime

It's now been two weeks and five cafés, which is a ratio of approximately 1 to 2.5, or, as I prefer, 2.5 to 1. There is a strong correlation - in fact it's probably even a causal relationship - between the number of cafés visited and kilometres trained. Especially if you visit three in one night. More of that later.

A different bit of Gent
© Jeff Jones

As alluded to in the previous missive, I partook of a spinning class last week. It's essentially the same as aerobics, but on a stationary bike. You can adjust the resistance to suit. The class at the local gym was pretty full, and we couldn't even get into the 7:30pm session, so we opted for the 8:30 one. That became 8:48 by the time we actually started.

I was the only one who brought a tape measure with me to measure the saddle height :-) But my plan to wear cleatless cycling shoes failed, as they were too slippery in the toe straps. And of course, I was the only English in the class, but the instructor was kind enough to explain things in English as we went along, not that it was really necessary. You just have to follow what he does.

We did an hour, and I was surprised at how hard it was, even though I wasn't too gung ho. I averaged 164 and hit 180 several times - about as hard as a not-too-hard criterium. We alternated between in and out of the saddle spinning, in and out of the saddle "strength" (more resistance), and some sort of out of the saddle poise exercise. There was very little rest in between all the sets. Definitely fun though, and a good way to ward off the cold. The room could have done with a few fans, or better, the removal of the roof.

The boss arrived at 12:40am on Friday night, after battling through the snow in Switzerland and Luxembourg. He didn't realise how difficult it was to drive in Europe in winter. We stayed up a few hours and I was a bit shagged after that. The next day, after doing some work in the morning, I dragged him out for a 30km ride along the Schelde at about 26 km/h. There's no way we could have done even part of the Saturday ride, and we were a bit too late for a drink (sorry guys). It took about an hour to pack up his bike for the flight home, which he had to catch from Paris at 11pm on Saturday. It was very much a flying visit.

Reinhard and I went out later for a couple of quiet ones. We checked out Sioux, which has the most bizarre entrance. You think you're walking into the sleaziest dive in Christendom, but inside it's a relatively normal café. There was a fancy dress thing happening so we opted to go to the very Latin Polé Polé café instead. I was determined to stick to beer, and started with a Vedett, which is being given a big marketing push by Duvel. It's an "extra blond" and unlike many Belgian beers, it's not so sweet and even has a slight pilsener ring to it. R had a rather stiff daiquiri - it helps to know the barman.

We moved onto De Ploeg, which is in Walpoortstraat but tricky to find, as it's on top of another café (Montuno's). There's a handpainted sign on the first floor, but you'd never know it was there otherwise. There are some metal stairs taking you up, and the whole place is all done up in sort of Canadian lumberjack wood panelling. Tres rustic. They didn't have Vedett there; in fact they didn't have much of anything. But I now know that Primus is pronounced the same as it would be in Australia. But it's not a beer in Australia, it's a camping stove.

The floor was shaking a bit, so we thought we'd have one for the road in Montuno's downstairs. That's when it went pear-shaped. Montuno's was completely and utterly different to De Ploeg, except the prices were about the same. It was small, very modern, and actually quite well done - not too pretentious. Some armchairs in the front, that were unfortunately occupied, a shelf full of actual records at the back, a fairly decent DJ, a moderate sized crowd and a surprisingly big bar staff.

I suggested a tequila, and R agreed with some trepidation. It came with a salt shaker and a slice of lime: you're meant to lick some salt off your hand, scull the tequila, then bite on the lime. It's a very fast way to get annihilated. We took the slow way, because R decided he liked the café and the tequila, and ordered another one, and another, and another, and another. Repeat until 3:30.

We didn't feel bad until we got outside. Driving the 1km home was of course out of the question, so we walked back through the fresh snow, taking approx. 1.5 km to get home, such was our path. Things became hazy after that. It took me until 3pm the next day before I could get out of bed for an extended period. R (who was most generous in giving me his last shot of tequila) didn't manage to feel even semi-human with bad hangover until 6pm Sunday. We think it was the lime, and we have both sworn off tequila.

I did 120 km today as guilt miles.

Weather: bit of snow at night, but relatively dry during the day and as much as 6 degrees. It's positively balmy.

The first week

As I write this, it's snowing outside and I have just spent a chilly 30 minutes walking home in it from The Great Australian Bite, a certain cafe that I have been frequenting of late. I enclose a photo, which includes the proprietor Reinhard Van Speybroeck, with whom I've been staying. He actually works more than me, so it's a good match.
The Great Australian Bite and Reinhard
© Jeff Jones
I didn't have much jetlag at all, apart from that weird feeling of being totally displaced. Took me a few days to get reoriented again and get used to the cold and gloom that is Belgium in February. I was a good choice not to ride, although when I wanted to start again this week, the weather turned pretty ordinary. I got a couple of hours in the dry on Monday, then today it was snowing off and on all day, so I hopped on Reinhard's home trainer for an hour and a bit. I might even do a spinning class or two if it stays like this. It is really not good.

We managed to venture out on Friday night to the Vooruit for a drink or two. Despite living here for quite a few years, I've never been there. It's one hell of a building and has to be seen from the inside and outside to be appreciated. One facade fronts onto the canal, and I guess it would be possible to have theatre performances there, like there are in other bits of the building. Then we went across the road to Stereo, where a friend of Reinhard's was having her 25th birthday. But we were a bit past it by then, despite blue-coloured cocktails.

Het Volk and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne were good season starters, but jeez it was cold taking pics at the start. I was working with Brecht Decaluwe, our work experience student, and I thought we did a good job. I've never been to the start of KBK before, and it was interesting in that they had it in the Hippodrome. What would have been more interesting is if they'd finished on the Hippodrome. Sort of like the velodrome finish in Paris-Roubaix, but on mud and horse manure.

Tom Boonen's a champ, but hats off to Philippe Gilbert and Nick Nuyens, who took the wins on the weekend.

Finished Brideshead (good book) and started Freakonomics, which promises to be fascinating. Thanks cousin Ant for that. There's some public recognition for you.

Dat is alles.