Marshals For Week of:
23 Nov 2008

2008-04-11

Hi all,

Hope you've got a chair, cause this may take a little while. I write nearly as much as I talk! But this time is news from racing my bike in Belgium :-)

A few people have been asking when I'm racing, I have been asking the same! I have only raced once since being here, which has allowed me to find some training legs and also figure out where to ride here. So my racing starts to wind up from this weekend, with a kermese each day. The women's racing is nowhere near as strong as the men. So for now there is only weekend racing and later on it builds up (hopefully along with my fitness!). Towards the end of my time here, I will do a few tours in Holland, Czech Republic and then France, plus a few one-day races. I will get a great mix of styles of racing and terrain and levels of competition.

My club team here is called SCF Liedekerke, which basically is the Belgium version of Squad of Cycling Women Wollongong! Hahaha Liedekerke is the town where the DS (director sportif) lives. The club is mostly made up of juniors and new riders, so I'm the 'old bag' with comparatively a bit of experience. There are two girls Anna and Hannah who are really good, they rode the Ronde van Vlannderen with the Belgium National Team. Patrick, the DS, is now very happy that he has 3 strong riders and hope that I will come back next year so he can take the team to the next level of racing. But with politics with the UCI etc this may be quite a difficult task.

The day to day runnings of being a cyclist in Belgium…a great comparison would be any uni student who cycles! Ride all day and chill out! Hehehe J

Perhaps next time some info about the races this weekend and what Oudenaarde (the town I live in) is like.

Cheers for now,

Leonie