My first kermese race

Hi everyone,
Now don't fall over, 2 posts in 1 week, wow!
Anyway whats new......well we had our first kermese the other day in Belgium. It was a 6km circuit race and only 88kms which was pretty nice really. The big news is that our team won, yay! Emma Davies went pretty much from the gun with one other person, who happened to be an aussie and off they went. It was pretty good fun back in the bunch trying to control stuff and not let anything get away, and we were pretty successful. I couldn't believe how many riders they get along to these races, there must have been around 100 riders or more on the start line.

The team also raced the next day and picked up another good placing, top 5 so thats all good news. We have quite a big race coming up this weekend, Ron van Gelderland, which should be interesting. I'm hoping that I'm starting to find some form and have a reasonable race.
Training in and around Tielt winge is pretty good, although still get pretty disorientated most rides that I go out on. The best part is that the sun is shining today and although still cold at least the sun can make you happy.

Marina, my new zealand team mate arrived a couple of days ago, so now we have 2 kiwi accents in the house. Apparently we have pretty strong accents, I had never really given it much thought before but we seemed to get hassled about saying things like the 'rest' which apparently sounds like 'wrist'. Anyway it is nice to have Marina here to hang out with. Our house is getting quite full now as Wendy and Norm from Canada are staying as well. Wendy is trying to qualify for the Olympics in mtb, so hope that we pass on some good vibes to her and her campaign.

Well its off to the race track tonight for some motorpacing action. Zolder is a motorcar racing track but the local cyclists on a tues and thursday go out and do training sessions. This is my first night going but apparently there are several groups of riders, from the fast group to the next group down and so on. I think it will be good for some leg speed and general race pace conditioning. I don't think it is so much a race but people do attack off the front but not sure what happens after that. I'll give you the lowdown once I have had the experience of Zolder.

Well better go have a snack before training

Ciao for now
Toni

Its been awhile

Hi everyone,
Thought it was time to actually get around to updating my blog. I will endeavour to do it more regularly, anything can beat the 2 years since the last update - whoopsie!
Anyway I'm currently staying in the team house of Swift racing, located in Tielt winge, Belgium. This is the first time I have really spent anytime in Belg and is quite a change from little wee Limoux. Our wee village is quite wee, in fact it has one bakery (which is fantastic by the way), a Spar store, a bank that combines as a post office and a small belguim local. Still it is very cute and the riding is pretty good round these part, no mountains but nice all the same. I have yet to take heaps of photos but will post them up as soon as I do - hopefully today.
I had my first race last weekend, Flanders. It was a slight shock to the system and din't fair that well, although was pretty amazing to be part of such a famous race. I raced again the following day and felt much better, so hoping that I have started to find my racing legs.
Today its my first Kermese, should be fun. The sun is shining for about the 4th day in a row, so I'm excited by that. Our team is kitted out in pink, with an accompanying pink and white Swift camper, nice! The girls are all super nice and friendly, which certainly helps. Our team bikes are Museeuw bikes, that again have some element of pink in them. I'm kind of hoping that I might be able to meet the famous Mr Museeuw himself.
The training grounds round Tielt are pretty good, still don't quite know my way round be getting there slowly. Have cetainly found some good cafes to have my coffee stop at though. Leuven is only about 15km away, Diese and Aarschot 10km so not so far on the bike.
Anyway looks like we are about to leave for the race so better go, promise to write again soon and let you know how the racing goes today.
Take care everyone