Where am I?

The question of the hour, almost every two minutes to myself; Where am I?

Good thing I wrote down the directions to the race on my hand, studied a map, and immediately made a wrong and headed 25 minutes towards Brussels. A cool place to be but not when you want to make it to Burst by 7pm for a race. I turned around spoke a few words to myself that I will not share or even admit to knowing.

Needless to say I never made it to Burst or the race. I have no idea where Burst really is. I have no idea how I would have finished. I have no idea what half the signs I saw meant. I have no idea where I was going and it finally it happened. I was just riding along on a beautiful bike path. Taking in the smell of diesel fumes, the smell of cow poop, and I hit a wall. I was trying like to heck to go faster but I could not do anything to fight it. The Dutch word for wall is "muur." To cycling fans this simple name for wall brings about a flood of images. Elite athletes, world champions, heros have hit this wall and felt the same way I did. In a world of hurt because no matter how good you are when you hit the "muur" it always hurts a little bit. The "muur" is also the shortned name for the Muur van Geraardsbergen a famous climb in the Ronde van Vlaanderen. The climb is 1km in lenght with an average gradiant of 6.8% and a max of 20%. Did I mention it's cobblestoned?

This is the bottom of the climb as you enter the city of Geraardsbergen. (image left)

The image below is once you've climbed up to the top.














Another image from the top.














Before my afternoon began we headed into Ninove to do some paperwork so I could finally sign up for an Elite race. Which I'm not so sure I want since I can't even manage a race of 70k let alone 120k. Bring it on. There was also a market going on so we took some time to stroll through and check out the goodies. I even enjoyed a waffle with suiker.

Far left; lots of baked goods from the "bakker"

left; sugar heavon!












The crowded market...
So next race should be Thursday night. I think Nico is driving, thankfully!