FINALLY!

Update: I grew up reading Bill Lyon’s columns in the Philadelphia Inquirer. He talked us all through some rough (and joyful) moments for Philly fans, but now he’s retired (or semi-retired, anyway). But a Phillies World Series win wouldn’t be complete without some thoughts from him.

Phil Sheridan, who’s done a pretty good job of filling Mr. Lyon’s very big shoes at the Inquirer also had a great column today.

Here’s a thought: If crossresults.com processed Belgian results, my top nemesis would be Kris Maes, and my top Victim would be Bjorn De Meulemeester. Two weeks in a row we’ve finished in the exact same order. Interesting.

Here’s another thought: Whose bright idea was it to hold a cross race in a trailer park? Bizarre.

Photos of the race, and our day at the beach, are here. Check back for a full race report very soon.

Our day in Zingem started out gray and very chilly — chilly enough that I had a hard time warming up, and really regretted not bringing more clothes with me. Having felt like I didn’t handle my bike as well at Serskamp as I would have liked, I wanted to get plenty of time in on the course before my race went off, and I was glad to have time to put in three laps, because there were a few steep, technical climbs and descents that I was glad to have a chance to see.

The course itself started with along stretch on a sleepy road through a neighborhood a little ways away from the center of the village of Zingem. (In fact, I noticed that you actually cross the town line not far from the finish line, meaning that most of the race was actually not even in Zingem.) Maybe 100 or 200 meters after the finish line, a quick right turn took you out onto tractor roads into the fields. The first section had a couple of turns and some very sticky mud, but nothing tricky. A quick right brings you back onto road for a few meters, then a left takes you back into the fields, past the pits, and through a series of swoopy little s-curves. Coming out of the fields you head for a long straightaway on the side of the road, then into a sort of wooded area where you go over a series of three tricky little climbs and descents over some man-made embankments. One more long straight brings you to the other side of the pits and over a bridge featuring a big step up — the only dismount of the race for me. Then it’s back to the line along the road and into another lap.

Racing through the Cow Fields in Zingem

I was worried about the cold being a factor as start time approached, but then, about ten minutes before the start, the sun broke through and suddenly it was a gorgeous, much more mild, fall day. They lined us up quick, and we were off and racing. As the race went off I immediately felt like my warm-up wasn’t enough, because I couldn’t stay with the initial surge at all. Fortunately, a bottleneck as we turned off the road kept things together, and I was able to hang on for the whole first lap while my legs came around. Going into the second lap I was in the middle of a bunch of riders towards the back of the field. Unfortunately for me, the course was constructed in a way that made it hard to leave tractor path to pass anybody. So I just stayed with the group and finally made my move as we came back around to the road.

Leading, for a moment, anyway.

This was definitely a case where my strengths — mainly the ability to crank even when I’m completely blowing up — was balanced by the technical skills of my competitors. Every lap they’d regain the lead as we came through the more technical sections of course, and I’d take it back on the road. Eventually a couple of guys popped and went off the back, and a couple of other guys who must have been holding back made a move I couldn’t cover. At about the same time, the leaders (who were really, really fast) picked us up, meaning that we’d be pulled at the end of the lap. I had been saving up, letting two guys gap me a bit, thinking we’d go at least one more lap. So I tried my best to run them down, but in the end couldn’t quite do it. End result was something like 43rd. It wasn’t as bad as last week, but nonetheless left me feeling like I could probably have done a little better.

One weird thing about the races here is that there’s very little cheering. People just kind of stand and watch. Mindi (hooray for her!) cheers for me, but otherwise, except for the race announcers near the finish, it’s just you and the wind and pain out there. In the end, I guess it doesn’t matter, but I was kind of hoping that I’d race to the sound of clanging cowbells and fans shouting in Flemish. For a country that’s supposedly obsessed with cross, the spectators seem surprisingly bored with it.

I guess you have to go to a World Cup race to get that crazy fan experience. Oh well.

Photos are on Flickr.

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Finally someone stands up to the real un-American argument:

I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.” Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, “He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.” This is not the way we should be doing it in America…

This week the Boston Globe’s Big Picture blog features the Sun. A discussion ensued on Metafilter where I wrote a little about one picture that I thought had a boring caption.

Turns out the proprietor is a Metafilter user too, so now there’s a new caption, courtesy me. Hooray for solar physics!