Christmas in Zolder

I almost forgot it was Christmas. We do have a christmas tree and all, but just not the same without snow.

So today woke up to a little trainer ride, then out the door to pre ride the World Cup in Zolder. What a polar opposite of the World Cup in Nommay. This course is fast!

The course starts off on pavement, obviously, takes a couple crit corners on the pavement before throttelling some fast ground/sand. The pavement transitions past the pits for the first time, which is the good side to pit from and doubles back on itself before entering the first set of roller coaster uphill kicker climbs that are very sandy. The climbs are slightly hard to get over and then shoot you down the back side of them violently onto the pavement where you must turn quickly and hit another kicker then face some off camber sand, uphill, more sand, up and down over some roots, up again towards a chapel, steep, fast downhill, chicane turns, blast down a straight away, and over a woop. The course then gets really tricky.

There is a really tricky, sandy muddy uphill left hander, flattens out a bit, with some mud and lots of bumpy ruts and you have to really punch it to get over another hard right onto the top deck. There is a litte respite in a closed pavement section before a brutal loose sand downwill that your momentum carries you to a 3 meter wall that must be about 60 percent gradient that you have to dig your toes into to climb up. Once you get over that you fly down to one more 180 degree downhill right turn onto the sand, then they built a massive metal ramp to throw you onto the start finish which you make one more right hander before the finish. Man, I'm out of breath all ready. So the challenges of this course will be to ride as much as possible full throttle with the hands glued to the top of the bars and just pretend that I don't have brakes, for the most part. I think as long as you commit to the sand, the bike will find its way down and the 30, 000 spectators will probably be motivation enough to ride fast.

This course is a little more like the type of course I am used to, fast, speed, power. The main difference is that you always have to be thinking and completely dialed in and focued. As well courses in the States don't have this many features, they may have one or two or maybe three, but here it's just non stop obstacles and challenges. Like I said the challenge isn't just riding it, it's riding it at full speed. But I definetly think that is is a course on which North Americans will do better at then Nommay. That is if we can stay healthy.

Tasha is recovering from her gastro illness but still not 100%. We'll have to take it one step at a time.

Even though we were too cheap to buy gifts for each other, or anyone, we did get a gift from Wendy Simms. Tupperware. Sweet, now I can bring my oats to the race!
We'll definelty remember Wendy when we go to Brugges, we know her weakness.

Tot ziens.(Good bye)