Saturday, January 20, 2007

Man with a Plan

It's in the books. 07 Master's CX Worlds happened. Where to start? On the way to the venue, we flipped a "right on red". I commented how nobody followed us. Not good. It wasn't 5 mnutes later and the Belgie Po-Po was blinging lights and we were pulled over. It's a unique feeling to have an officer of the law say something very important in a stern voice and not understand what was said. F'ing Americans. "We do this at home, so why can't we do this here?"

After an explaination by the female officer of how this is done in the US, alpha male backed down. We were also lost at this point, and so we asked which way to the venue; it was behind us. We explained that we had 10 minutes to get to sign in for Ped's race and asked for an escort...jokingly. They weren't joking and turned around and busted it 30 km over the speed limit and we had a free ride all the way to Lake Zilvermeer. Hilarious.

Ped raced 40-44 at 2 pm and had a great start, and slowly settled in...only to gear down and stop "getting in people's way." Euro dudes. Saw some SICK bikes at the start, this one was over the top. (We'll let the shoe cover size slide b/c of the Lightweights)


My race (30-34) went off at 3 pm and while the "Secret Belgian Start" was used for every other race (draw a random number as "pole postion" and line up sequentially from there) our race was super-random and I got a nice last row call up; perfect.

The start was insanely fast on a straight pave section and then a 90-degree turn onto a beach.


I moved up on the pave and was sitting in low 20's for most of the race and then settled in to finish---on the lead lap--in 28th. Legs felt ok and had some memories of power from months ago, but a 12 hour plane ride is a 12 hour plane ride. I was sucking the wheel of a 6'6 Dutchman through the start/finish on multiple laps and he had some choice opinions on my strategy. I think he asked me "do you wanna get frites with me after we're done?" or something like that.


The fans were the best. Super-civilian fans all Belgified out for the event.


The guy below was down with the cause; the man with the plan.


Home-boy had a cart with a noise-machine that was used for Belgie's only.


The horn sounded like this:

5 comments:

pvb said...

Nice Zac!!

Belgie Dub Soundsystem!

Mackswell said...

FNA MTF!!! So good to see that you made it and got to spend some quality time on the beach talkin' frites with the locals. Loved the Belgie horn section with full on car batteries and the dude all draped in his little nations proud cullaz. Wish I was there with you! have a strong beer, some frites w/good mayo and a smoke for me my friend; you have truly earned it! See you back in the PNW.

allons-y said...

nice zac, makes me proud to have joined HUP

van den kombs said...

good job Zac
see you next weekend !!
kc

Eto said...

Zac,
Once you've experienced the true Euro scene, home will never feel the same. Great job!