Sunday, July 8, 2007

Who wants to be a Flandrien?

I do, I do! Today i went on KBC Bank-sponsored cyclotourist ride called Word Flandrien, which means 'Become Flandrien.' A Flandrien in cycling terms is a bad-ass road racer who excels on the typical heavy terrain found in the Flanders region of Belgium - steep cobbled climbs, treacherously technical descents, all contested in cold, wet weather; think Tour of Flanders!!



Cyclotourists were given the option to ride 30, 80 or 110km tours. We opted for the 80km since yesterday was spent tooling around the Ardennes - photos to come! Also the idea of doing 110km was a bit too much to handle considering riding the Women's Tour de France when i was not physically prepared to do it set my recovery and fitness buildup back once again!




Aside from the plethora of interesting people on the ride, I really enjoyed the feed zone at the midway point! It was held outside the Tour of Flanders Museum and they served my favorite foods - chocolate soymilk made with real belgian chocolate AND peperkoek (spice bread.)




Photos are from the midway point - and more photos to come once i download the rest.


Best regards,


Peanut








5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ahh, I love choc soy milk! Even more after I realized it is the perfect 4 carbs to 1 protein for recovery! I just had some this morning to finish it before we catch a flight from Montreal to Toulouse to ride and catch the tour. L'etape is a week from today so I will be suffering over the 5 cols! Rest well. Ciao Philip

Big Bad Wolf said...

Looking forward to see where you tooled around in our Ardennes.

Anonymous said...

Is that ... a collection of tire scrapers? [lower right photo] I always wondered why those things disappeared. Didn't weigh anything, didn’t really contribute drag worth mentioning, and actually worked pretty well, knocking off bits of glass and thorns before they had a chance to penetrate the tread. I suppose it would be hard to mount scrapers nowadays, what with modern recessed brake bolts. Was this person trying to sell them? They don’t seem to be exactly flying off the table. And speaking of 'flying off', I guess there were no more takers on seeing you hang sideways from a lamppost?
-- E.C. Chamberlain

PEANUT said...

The tire levers et al were part of the Tour of Flanders museum display.
Philip - have a super mega duper time riding and watching the tour!

Buckles said...

yuck, those bananas look so green that i wouldnt want to eat them raw.