Last weekend brought us more nice weather. Not quite as nice as beautifully sunny Saturday the weekend before, but nice enough for me to saddle up and go for a long ride. I’m still easing back into the season, workout out the aches and pains that develop every time I go from sitting around doing nothing to riding again. So I picked a loop that’s not terribly long, but discovered that it was a loop I had originally designed to get in as much climbing as possible.

In fact, it turned out that the ride had about 620 m (2050 ft) of climbing, much of it very steep. That might not sound like a huge amount, but remember, this is Belgium, one of the flattest countries on earth. So that’s a lot of climbing.

Climbing or not, it was a nice loop, mostly quiet roads in forest and farmland, a few small villages. It passes through the Forêt de Soignes, Hoeilaart, La Hulpe, Lasne, Rixensart, and back into town. There’s a map of it right here.

Sunday brought warmer, but wetter weather, and I rode around just to the south of Brussels in the rain, watching a huge number of mountain bikers struggle through some kind of tour of the towns down there. It looked fun actually, and if I had been on my ‘cross bike I might have even tried to join them. But I was on my road bike, getting wetter and wetter, and instead headed home. In the afternoon we had lunch with at the fantastic La Maison des Crêpes and went to see Slumdog Millionaire, which we had been trying to see for many months. It was challenging, since much of the movie is in Hindi, subtitled in French and Dutch. So I got some good French practice.

Next week kicks off the spring classics season here, with the newly renamed Omloop Het Volk (now as Omloop Het Nieuwsblad) on Saturday and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne on Sunday. Both races pass through Zegelsem, one of the prettier places we’ve been to here in Belgium and site of one of my favorite ‘cross races as well. I might try to ride over to Ninove and catch the race as it passes through on Sunday if the weather’s good.

Saturday also offers the Balloon Parade kicking off the Tourist Year of the Comic Strip or something or other. So we’ll probably have to try to make it to that as well. Stay tuned…

I guess you could call this fellow a jerk, but I call it comic gold.

So after about four weeks off, which included time spent sledging in Switzerland, some time spent covering ‘Cross Worlds in the Netherlands, and time spent spacing out on the sofa on Valium because of a back injury, I’m back on the bike. Started up easy this week, with a couple of rides in the rain on my singlespeed, and progressed to some solid, if not exactly long, rides on the road bike over the weekend.

Saturday was a rare February day here in Brussels, warm (at least in contrast to the typical February day in New Hampshire) and sunny, and the perfect day to start the very gradual return to serious training. I headed out on a route that follows the canal and loops through farm fields to the south west of Brussels, a route that has become a favorite of mine since I first rode it sometime last fall. (Map here for the curious.)

I felt good, if a little slow by the end. I’m clearly out of shape, especially for longer rides, having spent most of my training time for the past few months focused on the short hard efforts that get you ready for 40 minute ‘cross races.

But the ride was pretty, with great views as it crests the tops of several treeless hills, horses watching from their pastureland along the course, and a chance to watch some model stunt planes flying around kilometer 22 (see the map). I came back and watched the miserable looking weather for the Tour of California prologue, and thought that it must be awfully rare for the weather in Belgium to be better than the weather in California in February.

Sunday wasn’t as nice, and I did one of those rides, with light snow falling for most of the way, where I have to keep telling myself that I’ll be glad I did it come june. I headed out through the Forêt de Soignes into the towns of Hoeilaart and Overijse, riding up and down the rolling hills that border the main street of both towns. Remarkable, for a second day in a row the weather was better in Belgium than in California. Now I think I’m officially back in the swing of things, training full time. I’ll go easy for a couple more weeks, then start really turning up the volume and doing some nice long rides as the weather (hopefully) starts to warm up.

Meanwhile, much of my time during the last week or so has been spent talking to and emailing with riders from ‘cross Worlds for an article for Issue 6 of Cyclocross Magazine. I’ve got some great stuff, with the inside story from the US National team, and I think it’ll be a good article. If you haven’t already and you’re into ‘cross, I highly recommend subscribing.

A couple of years ago we went to Portsmouth’s Red Door’s Hush Hush Sweet Harlot Series and saw a band from Northampton called the Winterpills. Despite the fact that their lead singer, Philip Price, had laryngitis and could only sing a few songs, they were awesome. (Although almost everybody seems awesome playing in the Red Door’s intimate confines, they were exceptional.) And they quickly became one of our favorite bands.

At the time they had only one album out, self-titled, which brimmed with these spacious, melancholy songs. It was early spring in New England, and the music was just perfect for those days of melting snow, lingering twilights, edging warmth. You could feel the influence of their Western Massachusetts home in the record, or so it seemed to me.

Anyway, that was a few years ago now, and they’ve got a couple more records out, most recently Central Chambers. The music is more sophisticated, less sweet and more brittle, with just a hint of a harder edge. But they retain their core sensibility, broad and beautiful songs.

The best part is, if you head for their website you can listen to all three of their albums in their entirety. And I recommend you do this right now. Top tracks: “Take Away the Words” and “We’ll Bring You Down.”

But before you go, I have just more comment. It seems to me that they’ve quoted a snippet of the end of Stars’ song “Celebration Guns” in their own song “Wire”… on the theremin which is just so very cool. (Nothing is cooler than the theremin, except quoting great pop songs.) Ok. That’s all. Go listen.

ps. If you are nearby, I also highly recommend going to Hush Hush. It’s a treasure trove of great, mostly undiscovered, gems.

I’ve posted a few of our photos from CX Worlds on Flickr, but it’s just a taste of what we’ve got coming. Mindi took, literally, like 500 pictures. So there will be more, I promise, but it’ll be a while before we get to them, since there are also like 200 photos from Switzerland we have to post as well.

Some Swiss fans brought huge cowbells!

Covering ‘Cross Worlds for Cyclocross Magazine was pretty awesome. I had the chance to talk to a lot of American racers, almost all of whom were polite and friendly and happy to share their thoughts on the race. I know some of them were pretty disappointed about their results, but it’s just the nature of the beast. Everybody wants to have a great race at Worlds. Everybody wants to be in the top five, but, well, only five people get to do that, and, especially for a lot of Americans, starting out of the back of the group, getting there requires a series of events, all of which require lots and lots of luck. Most of the US riders were going just as fast — maybe faster at some points — as the groups in the front, but if you can’t make the initial selection, you’re stuck racing for 15th instead of 5th.

Nothing was more emotional than talking to Jonathan Page after the race. He’s been through a lot this month after learning that he missed a doping control in November and facing a real threat of a possible suspension. He missed the test after sustaining a serious head injury in a crash and heading home early for treatment. Nobody told him about the test until nearly a month later.

Think about that one for a second: you have a bad day, make a minor error at your job, and a month later learn that because of the error you could be suspended from your line of work for years and get to have your reputation dragged through the mud in full public view. He only learned he would get to ride at Worlds a couple of days before the race. No wonder he was emotional!

Anyway, we had a great time, had some very interesting conversations. I’m already working on setting up a couple of interesting future stories for the magazine about what it’s like for elite racers here in Europe and some other interesting stuff. There’s no more racing for me this season, but check in for more news about the news soon.