December 26, 2007 (Brugge, Belgium) – On our off day Les and I went to Brugge. This is easily one of the most beautiful cities I have ever been to as the architecture is amazing. While in Brugge I also did some scouting for Hockey Canada – in the center of the town was an ice rink – and there were some horrible wrongs being committed. First off the boys all had on white skates and looked like badly dressed versions of Brian Orser. The second was the foot of snow on the ice.

Clearly the Zamboni, or flooding of the ice, has not reached here yet. Also the snowball throwing was weak on the girls and boys side. So I now report back that Belgium will not – I repeat – will not be a hockey threat at Vancouver 2010. On the flip side Canada has not posed a threat to Belgium in the cyclocross scene.

GP Montferland – Race #2
Well race #2 was not so good. The course was super fast and had a huge stair to run up. At the start I pulled out my rookie card and had the whole field sign it – basically I missed my pedal twice and proceeded to land on my top tube and was at the back of the race in about five seconds. However after this I learned from my previous race mistakes and took every possible opportunity to move up.

On the stairs on lap 1 it was almost a standstill, so I just ran up through the woods on the right and got by about 10 riders. Being from Canada we have all had the Saturday night bushwhacker party experience so this was no problem. Towards the end of lap 1 there was a really fast section, a slight downhill double track with only two lines. I was cooking along when a rider went off the track and crashed. While he was crashing he nailed my rear wheel and put me into the crap and course tape. I eventually went over the bars while trying to avoid a fence post.

The aftermath of this had me shake off the cobwebs and limp my bike to the pits with some bent bars. I now was dead last after one lap. I got on my other bike and did my best from there on in. I caught a lot of riders and finished 43 out of 70 or so starters. The only problem was that I had fractured a bone in my wrist during the crash. It definitely hurt during the race but was race-able. This resulted in a sampling of Belgium’s medical system the next day. My experience in the hospital was very good, the care was excellent, and the orthopod who treated me was a cyclist. He was going to cast it but did some tests and gave me a brace to try to see if I could still race. So I’ll give it a go on Dec. 26 at the Hofstade CX World Cup.

Derrick rode really well and placed a very respectable 38th and was on the same lap as the leaders. Also of note was Kevin Hazzard having the best race of his stay over here coming in 48th.

In the women’s race Wendy’s 5th place finish really should have been 3rd if not for her trying to show the cyclocross fans her ability to skid her rear tire 180 degrees. Basically she slid out with 1km to go and bent her bars thus rolling in for 5th. But she was smoking for the other 98% of the race and hopefully she will have an error-free race and crack the top 3 soon while over here. Natasha Elliot rode strong again and oddly got 15th. Lesley was a champ in the pit, for her first bike exchange of the trip.