Theme Tune

After many hard seconds of work, the official theme tune has been mixed down and released.

Here Come the Belgians by minnellium

CTT Registration

After much chasing we are now registered as a club with the CTT. This means that we can all take part in Open Time Trials as members of Here Come The Belgians. Whilst dual carriageways might not be everyones idea of a good time, I am looking forward to a good end of season bash at the hill climbs.

Get stickered......

At last!

I have found a supplier for the fab 3 piece sticker set that Duncan designed a while back, specifically for Planet X Uncle John cross frames (the default frame for most of our cross riders). Cost is £16 incl p+p.

If you have a different frame, road or cross, it may or may not work - use the measurements below to see it you can adapt it.

Additionally Duncan has designed a small single Belgians sticker c 50mm x 20mm. Cost is £0.50 each incl p+p. (Red line is for cutting guide only)

The order sheet is here

Deadline for this order is Tues 31 May

Oakbank Summer CX

Well here we go – Round 1 of the Yorkshire CX Summer Series.

I was hoping my first blog as a Belgian would be an account of a storming race - where I dodged and weaved, and ducked and dived, and sped like a maniac, and finally succeeded in my own personal race of ‘not being last’.

Unfortunately, a bad accident on the first lap (not me) ended the race prematurely, and it was eventually abandoned. As an aside, the person in question is fine, by all accounts, and was released from hospital the following morning.

However, some positives can be taken from the evening. Firstly, I met a couple of my new team mates – Nick and Mark – good to meet you chaps. Secondly, it did feel like I was storming along, and a good finish, for me at least, was on the books I’m sure??

So, there we go – roll on Round 2…..

And remember, let’s keep safe out there.

John

Tour of Flanders etc.

Here we are again then Chaps. Another post explaining my lengthy absences and my adventures in the interim. I'll major on 2 things, I think...

1) I've now moved to Scotland. For those of you considering it, I can tell you that moving house 120 miles away and job in the course of a weekend with 2 dogs in tow is not easy. It really eats into your blogging time.

2). The Tour of Flanders Sportif ride will, I imagine, be of much more interest to you!

I travelled over with Fraser Kynaston, who's taken some cross photos of Belgians in the past, with the intent that both of us ride. He, however, was claiming an allergy to antibiotics he was taking (or to cycling long distances, I forget which), leaving me to tackle the 260km on my own.

Lining up in Bruges Markt at 0700 on the saturday morning, a number of things struck me. Firstly, pre registration had been a waste of time the queue of people buying entries on the morning was moving at least twice as quickly as my own. Two, that really was Joe Parkin lining up behind me and finally that the fame of the Belgians is spreading. The jersey attracted comments from 2 other British cyclists before the off.

I had typed out an essay on the days cycling but it was waaaay too long and can be summarised thus. Yes, I was directed the wrong way and rode an extra 15km. Yes, I lost my fancy HRM/Computer on some cobbles. Yes, I have total admiration for the Vittoria Paves. Yes, I lost both my bottles on cobbled descents. Yes, I snapped my chain on the Muur. Yes, I ended up looking like this


Yes, it was awesome and I'm going back!