We have been here for 3 weeks and already have a dutch boy changing our punctures (of which there are many, silly shells and sand!) and cleaning our bikes, so as we are nice NZ girls we thought we would make him one of Ashleigh’s amazing cheese cakes; however making a cake when all the ingredients are in Dutch is not easy, and we ended up with an amazing looking yoghurt cake. It turns out quark is not cream cheese, and yoghurt and caramel chocolate do not go well together. At all. Although we did save ourselves by naming him “Hemi” and claiming he was a traditional Maori dish. (Sorry team).
Amsterdam. What to say about Amsterdam! Let’s just say it lived up to its reputation, the lights were red and the weed not hard to come by. Hash Pop for a Euro anyone? We spent the day exploring and avoiding the inappropriate souvenirs in the touristy shops.. Cough reproductive organ shaped salt and pepper shakers were particularly plentiful cough. We found a steak house! Mmmm STEAK! We are having big meat cravings!! Please send a cow. Aside from that we admired the architecture, canals, street entertainers, train station, shopping, BAKERIES, and took an abundance of photos.
Training went well for the week and we even got some skin out, taking off legwarmers just the once. Hannah learnt how to use a Garmin to save us getting lost again, but she was a little bit shit at it, and we got to go in a circle instead of where we wanted to go, but thats ok. She tried and we love her anyway.
We did get to go climbing too, which was exciting! We covered an unbelievable 50m of elevation in the 60km we rode along the coast. God Bless the sand dunes. It did turn out to be good training for the weekend however. On Friday we found out we were going to Belgium for the weekend, just casually. To Belgium. For the Weekend. We left on Saturday with the team. In a team bus, Just casually. We arrived at our 135euro per night accommodation Saturday evening. Just casually. Which the team paid for, of course. Sunday we drove to the Start and the mechanic prepped our bikes, Just casually. He did spend a while frowning at Ashleigh’s Bike, but we concluded he was just bewildered that anyone could have legs that short since he didn’t report any problems. The Team manager signed us in and collected our numbers for us. Just casually. And the souigner prepped our legs before the race. And made up our bottles for us. Just casually.
We lined up with 197 riders, just casually. And then the race began. That’s where the just causally stopped, for a while. The first 30km were good. We were big and brave and scary and sat in the peloton and didn’t see the back of the bunch. Until it strung out into single file through a series of corners in a village, and then turned into a rough cross wind. We both found ourselves with a face full of gutter and it was all over red rover. The rest of the women in our bunch didn’t seem to find much point in chasing so we had a crack on our own and came to within 50m of the convoy for about 6km. But it was never going to happen and we let the bus catch us again once we were spent. We didn’t hang out with them for long though, we soon hit the climbs and were away once more. We rode the final 30km after the hills in a group of 4. Just casually. We crossed the line and rode between the parked team buses of Liquigas, Rabobank, Saxobank, Sky pro Cycling, Garmin, Vacansoleil, Omega Pharma-Quick step.. just casually. Didn’t manage to marry any of them yet though. Showering after a race in Belgium is quite an experience. Let’s just say no one particularly has any concerns about being naked in public and naked communal showers are just as common as sliced bread. Just casually.
That’s our super exciting week, so much to take in. (or avoid taking in!)
We hope its stopped raining there.
Shorty and Fatty lum lum.
P.S if anyone knows how to deal with addictions to baked goods, Hannah needs your help.
