Life so far...

A tower near Gullegem, BE
The team right now from left to right: Robert Bush (Louisville, KY), Jacob Rathe (Portland, OR), Danny Finneran (Oak Park, CA), Me, Ryan Zupko (Pheonix, AZ)
Some cool castle looking bridge in Kortrijk, BE
Some Belgian guy feeding pigeons in Kortrijk
Should I be worried that my roommate wears Uggs???


So I have been here in Izegem about 6 days now, and life has been pretty good so far. We have done two races, and I now have two big stage races coming up. The first two races went fine, but nothing spectacular... yet that is. My riding skill such as navigating through the pack have improved so much since last year it is amazing. I have learned how to be pretty scrappy and hold my ground. Not only that but I didn't even get yelled at that much which is a huge feat when you are an American junior racing in Belgium. I guess the last time I really raced was when I was over here last fall, and I just feel so much more comfortable riding through the pack and pushing kids out of my way. That sounds kind of mean, but it's actually how you move around when you try to get anywhere, and everyone does it, so it isn't so bad. Last year the first time I really experienced racing in large junior fields with many aggressive riders was in Quebec at the Tour de L'abitibi. I remember how scared I was when people would kinda shove me over and now I just nudge them back.

Other than the racing we haven't been doing a whole lot, yet it seems we are always super busy. I don't even know where all of this time has gone, because it is not really like I have been doing anything... It's funny the days seem to go by slowly-ish, but once I look back it's crazy to think 6 days have already gone by. What I'm most excited for though is the race in the Czech Republic which we will be leaving for tomorrow. It is going to be awesome. A ton of national teams will be there because it is a really highly classified race. It's called the Peace Race, and is supposed to be one of the hardest, if not the hardest, junior stage races in the entire world. Some call it the Tour de France for juniors. There is a fair amount of climbing and a time trial, so the race should suit me extremely well. I can't wait to go not only just to race but it should be cool to see a new country, and drive through two others. I guess we will be driving on the Autobahn for a while which will be pretty sweet.

After the Czech Republic, three of the kids we are here with (actually four but there are currently only five of us, and another comes in late tonight to accompany us to the Czech) will return home to the US and my teammate Rob Bush and I get to stay a bit longer and do another tough stage race, this time in the Netherlands called the Ronde Van Axel. I am really excited to participate in these competitive races and just so pleased that I have this awesome opportunity to come over here and race. It is pretty sweet.

Sorry about the lack of updates so far, I will try to start updating more often, especially if we have internet in the Czech Republic. The time just seems to have disappeared I don't even know where it has gone... I really can't remember even doing a whole lot other than racing, training, eating, sleeping, grocery shopping, and wandering around Promo fashion (the shop for cheap clothes in Belgium, kind of like the equivalent of a payless shoes or Steve and Barry's or something in the US). We really like promo fashion, it is especially entertaining because they have these T-shirts with English writing on them. It is similar to how many of us in the US have some shirts that maybe have Japanese or some other language written on them but we have no clue what it actually says. Well obviously the people making the shirt don't have a clue what it means either, because these shirts say the funniest things, they say things that don't even make sense or are written with poor grammar, and some of the words are even spelled incorrectly. We get a pretty good kick out of it.

Well I guess that's enough for now, I will continue to update you all as much as I can. I hope all is well at home or wherever you are. Maybe next time I will have some great results to share as well.

Until then,

Larry