The big race was finally here. Not really that big though. Almost average for a SoCal race actually, but it did cost spectators 3.5 Euros to get into the park--so we were happy to have 3.5 Clinkspoors to cheer us on and help with any language issues (which there weren't for the most part).

The Bailey Boys, Bart, and his son Rene--Stybar's biggest fan.

Pretty much business as usual as a typical travel race. We got there early enough to scope out some of the lines and see how they were developing in the sand. Registration was no problem and very efficient. Bart had hooked us up with trainers so we could warm up; this time we actually got going with our warm up on schedule, a solid hour before our race. We warmed up for 45 minutes, changed into our outfits and headed to the start area. We were a bit tentative, and thus, a bit early. We were hot warming up, but it was 2 or 3 °C and we had a solid 15-20 minutes until our start, which comes out to about 18 minutes metric. The callup is completely random except for any previous year's champion; was called up pretty far back, and Bailey in the row behind me--I don't know about fifth row, but the Euros totally pack in so we were completely crammed and elbowing while standing at the line. So by this time we were freezing, and I could not feel my hands for three or four laps.

I had a good start and clip-in, but otherwise it was total chaos. We were both dismounting before we even hit the first sand section--the section that we were clearing the entire stretch in practice. But here, for the both of us, was our key mistake for the entire race: once we hit the hard packed sand at the water's edge, we both tried remounting and riding; but basically, everyone else is as well, and going slow; so you're just waiting in line to go slow. In hindsight I should have simply jogged casually through the deep sand--we would have ran past 10+ guys. Had we sprinted . . .

Bailey through the sand:

After the chaos of the entire first lap, Bailey and I were pretty close to each other for the first half of the race. About half way, we hit the long road section with two or three other guys and Bailey got a gap off the front of this group. I rolled up next to them to show that I was wearing the same kit, so they'd better get to pulling my ass up this road. Bailey started catching guys, and I eventually rode off from the chasers. In the end Bailey was 22nd and I came in 28th. Neither of us really fired full on and found the course a bit tight and single-tracky without too much in the way of speed sections. The grooves and the sand were definitely a blast; and our 45 minute race required enough power through the various sand sections to make us sore the next day.

Now, after four-and-a-half months, the season was finally over, Godverdomme. When your season ends in Belgium, at least our season, you celebrate with mousel en frieten. With the rest or our Belgie family, we packed up Mr. Clinckspoor's Buick and headed to Overmeer, er somewhere, and we each these gigantic bowls of mussels, mine steamed with white wine--and of course all-you-can-eat frites. After mussels, Bart took us to Den . . . Den . . . Den Scrambled Eggs (I can't spell the name) for a nightcap. Then it was finally dessert time--to the Frituur! I had curry catsup, Bailey had Samari Sauce, and Bart did "pickles", which seems to be pickles in an orange colored mayonnaise.

Dessert:

On Thursday we nursed our hangovers after a night with the Clinckspoors and way way too much beer. I slept in a bit, but Bailey was up at 6:30 working. This would later be his undoing as he was throwing up on our shake down spin later in the morning.

So our buddy Bart took a half day of va-k and swung back by the Clinckspoor ranch, picked us up, and took us Gent for the day. Gent is old. Real old. We mostly meandered the narrow, cobbled streets, soaking up the oldness. We eventually went into Saint Bavo Cathedral whose first phase was built around 1038, with the original wood structure dating 942 . . . yea, 942--like full on chainmail-knights and dragons 'n stuff. I've never been anywhere so old, nor in a big cathedral, although I studied more than I can remember in college. Anyway, we walked in and I said--and this is totally true--"Holy shit!" I was totally shocked at how immense and old it was. Although we were not permitted to take photos, I still snuck a few with the iPhone. Saint Bavo Cathedral is most known for housing Van Eyck's The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, but you have to pay and go as a group to see that and we were too late. There is painting by Peter Paul Rubens that was quite impressive.

The 'holy shit' Saint Bavo Catherdral:

I've always been interested in historic places and things, but I'm just awed by the three, four, or five hundred-year-old buildings that might be housing a little cafe or smart little eatery; just as if it were nothing, like just a pub or sandwich shop or something. I love just soaking it in.

These were some especially old ones, that appeared to be simple cafes, but were quite beautiful:

My pirated photo of the Rubens painting, Saint Bavo enters the Convent at Ghente:

There was also I castle, which I had never seen before either:

Cool old places across the canal:

On Wednesday we made the drive up through Antwerpen to Mol to recon the course for Saturday. The Clinckspoor's GPS got us to Mol (in Dutch [Rechts afslag...]), but we had to go into a cafe to get directions to the course. Coincidentally, the man running the cafe with his mother happened to be one of the volunteers or organizers for the race. He scrawled out some directions on a napkin and I also located the park on the iPhone, which I'm sure only cost, like, oh I don't know, $10 bucks to look at Gmaps for a couple minutes (thank you Amanda for twisting my arm and forcing me to get an iPhone . . . okay okay, I admit that it's pretty sweet). Most folks are pretty interested in us when they know we're bike racers and want to chat a bit--they always seem especially amazed when we tell 'em we're from San Diego, Canada.

Cool old house in Mol from 1695:

The course in Mol consists of a long paved start/finish section, transitioning onto the beach through deep sand, along the shoreline of pretty lake, back up through some deep sand, and into Ardennes forest. Speaking of which, I kept an eye out for Germans as it is about time for another visit from the Belgium's favorite Teutonic friends--but I'm sure they wouldn't come through the thick, impassible Ardennes . . . again. In a way, I guess you could say that Maginot was right; the line worked. Anyway, the track was through the woods was getting nice grooves in the corners already, some nice mildly technical bits, and a couple more sand pits. The track was short, which will require us to do a lot of laps; considering that our race is only 40 minutes, that's going to be a lot of power to put out through those sandy areas. Luckily, Bailey and I were getting good at railing the sand and not dismounting (most of the time); we didn't see anyone else ride the whole distance to the beach, so we'll see how that treats us. I imagine during the race, it will be much more of a brute force game as the lines through the sand get smashed and broken.

Bailey on the beach:

The Belgians are passionate about their car diving:

On the way back to Schellebelle we stopped at one of the bigger markets to get some "provisions" and replace the Nutella, Speculoos, and coffee that we were rifling through at the Clinckspoors. The only excitement being the four-pack of Orval for 4.92-Euro--a single bottle costs the equivalent of about four Euros in the US.

Cool road in Wetteren on the way to the market:

We stayed in tonight and had another fine Belgie meal from the Mrs. Clinckspoor, which usually includes potatoes, boiled and/or mashed, cheese, and some kind of meat. Tonight we had leeks (or leeks as they say in Flemish) wrapped in ham then baked in a bath of some béchamel type sauce with cheese over it. Quite tasty; quite heavy. As the night went on and the wine, Orval, Maredsous 10 (10% abbey beer--Ouch!), Leffe, and conversation flowed. Of interest is the story of the missing panel from Van Eyck's Ghent Alterpiece (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghent_Altarpiece). The missing panel was stolen in 1934 and has never been found. Several researchers and experts had traced clues to the previous owner of the Clinckspoor's home. Every year or so, some arty detective types will come out and want to inspect and poke around as they're sure the panel is buried or hidden about--at one point, just prior to their ownership of the property, all the internal walls were torn out in search of the panel. Fun stuff.

For Thursday, after an easy spin-out, we're heading to Ghent. I'd love to see Arnolfini Portrait, but that unfortunately is housed in London; but like everything else here, isn't that about an hour away?

Today wasn't so eventful. Mrs. Clinkspoor drove the itty-bitty blue Fiat into Wetteren as we followed on our bikes so we could get some tubes, a CO2 gun, and cartridges. In true Euro fashion, one second you're practically out in the country, next second you're in a densely populated urban center. I don't have any problems with dense population and all that, but what I find baffling is that there is often, as far as I can tell, no traffic control at many of the intersections, or the quasi-intersections for that matter. So combine the lack of traffic control with a really old, unplanned road system (or path system really) and there is what appears to be total chaos. Being on a bike, and completely clueless, it seems to me---in a very American way---to mean that we always have the right away. No one has honked their horn or made any negative gestures in any way, so as far as I'm concerned, we're doing it right.

Super "smol" Belgie roads:

We got our tubes and headed back through Schellebelle to again take the ferry across the river Schelde to our familiar training grounds. We had some sprints and two-minute efforts on tap for today's training and needed some uninterrupted road. We were nearly to Ghent when we flipped it to come back and cross the river in Wetteren, foregoing the ferry and its grumpy pilot. Back in Wetteren, we searched, in vain, for a market with some soya milch, as the regular cow milch has an off, bitter taste to it. We never found any soy milk, but it was fun to peruse the odd jars of mysterious spreads and pickled unknowns that were available.

Workin' on bikes in the Clinckspoor shop:

Tomorrow, we'll try to pry ourselves out of bed early and head to Mol to recon the course for Saturday. Hear you soon!

Post ride recovery food: Speculoos and Nutella on bread and either a wafel or a Grany.

After a solid 10 hours of sleep, the Bailey boys got kit'd up and headed into Schellebelle proper to take the ferry across the river Schelde. Once across the river we followed the road paralleling the river to Ghent--keep-in-mind that it's a road only in the academic sense, as it was the width of your typical US bicycle path, but with the addition of two way auto traffic; plus, autos coming from the opposite direction do not slow down! A bit unnerving, but the drivers expect cyclist to be around so they're not threatening--takes a little cooperation, something we're not used to in California.

Waiting for the grumpy ferryman who only says "yah yah":

Once we arrived in Ghent, we didn't venture too far off the path as we were losing daylight and getting lost is always an issue; so we poked around a bit before we flipped it and headed back to Schellebelle. Naturally, since we weren't carrying a pump, I punctured. We came upon a Belgie having a smoke break on his ride; I say "Spreekt u Engels?" He says yes, but his pump didn't work and only let the rest of the air that was left in the tube out into the Flemish countryside. Luckily, we were under a bridge crossing the river into Melle, so Bailey rode over and noticed some bikes in front of a cafe. The cafe's owner's son just so happened to be on the Quickstep development squad and provided us with a floor pump--brush with celebrity of sorts. We returned the pump, had some excellent espresso, chatted, then tempo'd it back to the ferry and the Clinckspoor's.

Some cool old row houses in Ghent:

Tomorrow, Mrs. Clinckspoor is going to motorpace us into Wetteren where we'll get tubes and CO2 cartridges. Until then . . .

Team Bailey is off on its European foray to race the Masters World 'cross champs. It's been a long seaon and we're borderline toast as it is, since we started racing back in the middle of September racing every weekend until Xmas. After the holiday, we then started training hard again, got one more race under our belts, and now we're finally on our way to Mol. The season has been extraordinarily long, but it will be worth it as we officially end the season on January 23; then it's all frites and beer across Europe until we get to Tabor to watch the big boys the following weekend.

The Family Clinkspoor residence: European Headquarters for Bailey Bikes, Schellebella/Wetteren, Belgium.

We'll try to keep the blog updated a bit as visit Belgium's great cycling monuments, some Great War monuments, and the greatest beer monuments. Our first stop is Brussels and our host family's home in Wetteren, just east of Ghent. Time to start resisting the temptations.

Not resisting temptations with our gracious hosts, the Clinkspoors.

We are now in our 3rd week of racing with a solid start to the season. The bikes are really getting attention and we have representation in most parts of the country.

Interbike went well and despite some fouled up results, the founders were both in the top half of the results in the stacked Elite field at CrossVegas.

Here they are - should be fully inspected and ready for delivery by mid-July.

We're proud to see our Miniluv reviewed in our favorite source of all things cyclocross, Cyclocross Magazine. So grab the latest issue and give it a read!

While you're here, take a look around. We offer a lot of good stuff, including a new family of carbon wheelsets. And stay tuned, because we've got even more cross-tastic components on the way.

We haven't completely fallen off the planet - but the cross season has taken a real chunk of bandwidth out of our busy schedules.

Unfortunately, yours-truly busted up his shoulder last week so now I have more time to ramble on the blog.

The new frames are really working out great this season. We daily get emails from happy customers raving about the handling of their new baby - THAT is why we do this.

We have some alloy front triangle (O'Brien) frames in production right now - here is a teaser: