Ghent

Well I am in Ghent!

We are here for 3 days for a training camp on the track. It is my first time on the track since my crash....almost 6 months. Also it is my first time since then doing efforts. Safe to say I was not prepared at all for the intensity of efforts on the track! First day was pretty rough. Managed to come right today though luckily. Still not setting the world alight nor do I have my track legs back but riding into it! Glad to back into it. And most importantly my knee felt good during the efforts!

The track is black....that's a new one.

Tomorrow is the last day. Have some flying 2km efforts to do which should be good! Then back to good old Blauberg! 

Went out for dinner last night and had probably the biggest bowl of spag bol I have had in my life as well as it being up there with the best I have had in my life. Apart from Dad's of course!

That is a big bowl of pasta

Been working on something the last week or so. Decided to make a website! Will be much like my blog. It will have a specific 'blog' section as well as a bit about me, a gallery and a few other bits and bobs! Should be good when it is up and running! Hopefully I will get it up in the next couple weeks.

Until then you can keep up to date with stuff on here!

Cheers for reading.

WB

Shoot with Graham

As days in Belgium go, yesterday was a pretty good one.

The highlight of the day was of course getting to meet Graham Watson and have some photo's of the team and bikes taken. We rode to Leuven in the morning to meet him at midday. He trained up from Liege to meet with us. Turns out he is a good dude and really down to earth! He has a house in Nelson, NZ where he spends part of his year as well as have a Kiwi partner. 

We had a bit of a chat with him as a team when he arrived and then got into it! Was a pretty brief photo shoot. We found a big statue type thing in the middle of a big square in Leuven which was going to be the backdrop. We got a few shots of the whole team with all the bikes, then the team with only a couple of bikes and finally individual shots with us and our own bike

The main purpose of the shoot was to get some good pictures for our sponsors. Most importantly in this case was Trek Europe, hence the bikes in the shots. 

Was good to meet such a legend of the cycling community. 

Big thanks to Trek Europe, Skins, Rabobank, Sparc and BikeNZ!

When we get our hands on the pictures ourselves I will post them up on here so stay tuned! 

Cheers

WB

Belg Life.

There have not been many crazy happenings lately. Managed to settle into a nice wee rhythm here in Blauberg. 

The most important and exciting thing that has happened has been my knee slowly getting better. Been putting a lot of time into rehab, especially at the gym. Been visiting about 3-4 times a week and have noticed a big improvement already. Had lost a lot of strength since my last gym visit a couple of months ago. I will start looking at getting back into racing at the end of next week depending on how this week goes. 

We got some big races coming up. In just under month we will be racing Tryptique Ardennais which is a 3 day tour in Belgium which hopefully will be my first big race. Then at the end of May will be the Ras in Ireland. This is a pretty big tour which sounds crazy hard. Probably won't be doing this simply because I won't have enough form by then with the step back I have had with my turning bad. But through this time I will be training hard for Thuringen-Rundfahrt which will be one of the biggest targets for the team this year. 

Enough cycling talk for one blog I reckon. Here are some pictures from our day trip to Leuven yesterday. Leuven is the nearest big city to where we live. Pretty cool place. 

Everyone seems to be in their own little world in this one.. 

Artistic alley-way... 

Church 

Same church 

Cobble shot 

My friend Pablo the Baker-man 

Crazy Castle which was crazy.  

Just your typical dirty through-city canal 

Wasn't much to report in this blog post sorry! Cheers for reading though and hope you enjoyed.

Cheers

WB

Highs and lows.....Already

Well I finally managed to settle in to things here in Belgium. Sleeping pattern was on the fritz no more. Training was also starting to get back to normal with a few good sessions being put in.

Was feeling good and pretty excited for my first Kermesse which was last Saturday. The weather was perfect, it was about 22 degrees out and still. The race was a bout an hour away from where we live.

Cam, Myron and my bikes all ready to roll before the race.

 I rolled around the course when we got there - course was crazy - narrow roads, heaps of sharp corners, 200m uphill cobble section and 2 climbs, all in a 6km circuit. To add to the madness there were 267 starters. None of the boys had seen a Kermesse with this many starters before. Race was full tit from the gun. I spent the first 30mins working my way to the front. Was loving every minute of it. Dirty Belgies screaming at you in another language, people missing corners and just general madness. Was awesome.

However an hour into the race my knee started to hurt and as soon as i could feel it getting progressively worse i pulled the pin. Was pretty dark at the time because i was feeling good and would have loved to finish the race and see how i could have got on but in hindsight it was probably the smart thing to do.

After talking to my personal and team coaches we have decided that i will pull out of doing U23 Flanders and La Cote Picardie. Pretty hard decision to do this but definitely the right thing to do. It is a very long season and there are a lot of big and important races right throughout the season.

So for the next two weeks (During the nations cups) I will be undercover getting back into a routine of rehab type exercises as well as frequent visits to the gym while also training on the bike to keep the fitness up. Then I plan to be able to get back into a good hard training block to prepare for Tryptique Ardennais and the An Post Ras in Ireland, both of which are big tours.

Hopefully my next post will be all positive!

Cheers for reading.

Peace.

WB