I was so thrilled to have a bicycle to ride that I went on on the course and rode for nearly three hours at noon. Then I found out that my bag was being delivered to me at 4. So, I had a quick lunch, went to the reception and there it was. The missing/invisible/mysterious piece of luggage that has caused me so much mental strain was finally in my hands. I was mildly surprised.

I quickly put my Eriksen together and got out at 5pm for another hour. Man, does my bike ride so much different than the BMC. I’m not saying the BMC ‘cross bike is bad, I’m saying my bike is good. At least for me. It was so much easier riding the technical sections.

This course is “heavy” according to the promoter, who is Belgian, and has a lot of ‘cross experience. This is the course that they used for the Tom Boonen Charity Event that Cippo and all the other stars rode back in December. Boonen fell in the sand section coming off the road and finished somewhere in the 20’s. I don’t blame him.

The first sand section is super hard. It’s barely 50 meters, then a right hand corner and then on a beach. The sand is super fine. I sucked this afternoon, cleaning the section less than 50% of the time. But, on my bike tonight, I made it nearly every time, with speed most of the time. Once you twist up you might as well just bag it and run.

There is way more sand than the previous years I’ve been told. They are doing a ton of construction and it just churns up the sand and there it is. Lots of short, 10 meter sections that make it “heavy”.

So, I’m pretty beat. I can’t tell you how good I’m going. I felt like this afternoon, nothing was going right. But, tonight, I was going fast and not making many mistakes. Good for the mind. Tomorrow I’m going to be sore. My back and arms are already beat.

I got a text from AT&T about data usage. I’ve been using my iPhone trying to track my luggage. I’d used 17mb which cost $20 a mb. I signed up for an international data plan and it allows 50mb for $50. And they back date the usage. I hope that works. $20 a megabyte? Shit.

Okay. Going the 6km into Mol to get dessert and a beer. It’s Belgium after all. I wish I had the last 4 days back, but like I’ve said many times before, “it is what it is”. Right now, tonight, it is a lot better.

This isn’t a TRP advertisement or anything. (I bought my TRP CX 9 brakes.) But, if you are using cantilever brakes, these are by far the best and most easily adjustable brakes I’ve ever used. It was so simple setting them up last night. They have so many features that are so good, you’d never use another brake after using these. No shit.

I rode the course this morning for much longer than I should have. I wasn’t having a good balance day. Or power. Not really good for the mind the day before the race. I was riding just okay in the long sand section. I wasn’t doing any worse than anyone else I saw, but it wasn’t good enough for my liking.

I race at 11:35 tomorrow morning. If I would have known the course and all the trouble involved in this, I might have to rethink doing it all over again. It is mainly because of the crap shoot at the start. Hitting 50 meters of sand, 150 meters after the start of a cyclo-x, with a bunch of old guys, with a lot of diversity in abilities, doesn’t seem quite right. The call up here is suspect. There has never been any consistency in how they do it. It is supposed to be totally random. I don’t like that, but as long as they stick to it, I guess I can’t complain. If they start calling up people in some other order, then it seems wrong.

If I can get through the sand the first lap with my equipment in tack, and not too far back in the field, I’ll call that a success. I am positive that there is going to be a huge crash at the start of each and every race, mine included. Avoiding that is my main objective of the race, as of now.

Don Myrah stopped by and talked after we rode. He is thinking about the same as me. But, he is supposed to race 40 minutes. Me, just 30. It will be the shortest ‘cross race I’ve ever done. Not much time to “catch up”. We’ll see.

On paper, there are a lot of Americans over here that could do really well. Myself, Kevin Hines, Peter Weber(check out his video of the sand at Mud and Cowbells), Don Myrah, Jonny Bold, and Brandon Dwight are just a few. Hopefully the start is good to all of us and then it just becomes another race. Which is really all it is.