Impressions of Belgium

As of today, I have now been in Izegem, Belgium, for 4 days. My first impression was something along the lines of "this town seems quaint." Belgium is definitely unique, with lots of unique and interesting sights.

This is a picture that I took just a block away from where I am staying, that captures the feeling of the town pretty well. It is a bigger city, with a population of around 26,000, but it doesn't feel very busy. Most people seem to get around on bikes, but there is car traffic on the street that the house is on as well. Speaking of the house, this is where I am staying for the next few days:

Pretty much everything that you see in the picture is our house. Towards the back is what is called a "service course,"the place where the team keeps all the bikes, spare parts, and things of the sort. Most of the beds are upstairs, but I am staying on the lower level with a few other guys. I think in total, the house could accommodate 20 to 30 guys, so it has a lot of space. Also, generally there aren't so many cars, but today this happened to be going on directly to the left of the photo: This was actually pretty cool to see, because we didn't know that it was going to happen, but it reinforced the fact that they actually care about bike racing here. You might not be able to tell, but this is a field of probably 70 to 80 juniors, probably age 10 to 12. It is crazy, because you would never see a field that big in the US. Also, it is funny because as much as they seem to care about racing here, the riding SUCKS! This is a good example why. 

There are two things that make this terrible for riding. First, every time I go for a ride, there is a possibility that I will get hopelessly lost and find myself in Poland, without a working cellphone and with two flats and no way to get back to Izegem. Second, assuming that I have some idea of where I am going, there is now way to keep a steady ride, since you have to stop peddling every 20 seconds to slam on the breaks.  There is one solution to this, which is called the canal, which runs through Izegem. This is just a dirty stretch of water that runs for what seems like fifteen thousand miles, smells like rotting meat, and has no notable features what so ever, it just looks like this for hours on end. 

Now, I don't mean to paint such a negative picture, but I have actually been a bit sick since I got here, and today had to miss a local race because of that. I think that I should be fine, but I am just trying to get as much rest as possible to recover. 

I am really, really excited for my first race, which starts on Thursday and is in France. It is called Ronde de L'Isard, and is a 4 day U23 (under 23 years old only) climbing stage race in the pyrenees, the mountain range in the south of France. It is a UCI 2.2, and the website is here. I'm leave on Tuesday, so hopefully I can get enough sleep between now and then to get over this cold that I am having. 

And with that, I am off to bed! Talk soon.