Friday, November 28, 2008

Visiting old rides

It's 12:18pm in Belgium, and "Heart of Rock and Roll" from, yes, Huey Lewis and the news, is on Belgian radio.  It has been a week since a good mtb ride.  No, more.  Snow fell then rain fell and now it's just cold as can be.

So since I'm trying to figure out how to edit video I figured I'd tool around with some old video.  This one is from a trip to Scotland with Greg for his 40th b-day.  We arrived at Prestwick and drove right to the most famous of the seven stanes, Glentress.   How do you say super fun in Gaelic?
The next day took us to Mabie forest near Dumfries, still in Lower Scotland.  This one had a ton of woodwork, it was pretty impressive.  From there we drove up to the highlands to ride on the Isle of Skye.  Rated as the best single track in the UK, the Glen Sligachan ride was everything we had wanted - sublime trails, stunning beauty, clouds of midges, big mud bogs and peat moss, and a good dose of freezing rain.  It was excellent.
That was our last ride.  We made our way back to Glasgow the next day and spotted a mythical Scottish creature on the way.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Langdorp Toertocht


What's a Tour Tocht?  Every weekend in Belgium there are multiple organized mountain bike rides call tour tochts.  Hundreds or even thousands of belgian mountain bikes show up and pay around 3 euros to ride a marked course, followed by the ubiquitous beer (or 5).  Riders can choose one of three lengths, those generally being around 25, 40, and 60km.  And while you could hardly call them epic.....they can be super fun, especially if attended with friends, especially if it is not freezing and raining (which does happen in belgium), and ESPECIALLY if you're riding a single speed.  Because it seems that just about all these courses were designed for single speeding.
The registration/beer hall can be a soccer field clubhouse or community center.Every good toertocht has a halfway break with chocolate covered waffles and bananas and sportsdrink.
By far, the perfect machine for such a ride is a single speed.  Especially one with green grips.
The gang prepares for their ride.  Thankfully, no suicide 7:30am start.
A weekend or two back Peter from work invited me to do the famous Langdorp toertocht.  Langdorp is reputed to be one of the finest trail areas in Flanders.  It's where Sven Nys lives and does all his training.  It's where Davy Coenen won a flanders cup race.  It's where Peter has been trying to get me to go for about 2 years now.
Peter's brother Stijn is on a racing frenzy and super fit, luckily for the rest of us he was sick and taking it easy.  So we meandered through the 40k course fairly easily, grunting up the climbs and enjoying what I must admit was some tasty bits of singletrack.
The great thing about a tour tocht is that you see all types of bikes out there.  A lot of people are road riders staying fit, others just riding what they have in the garage...the new mtb revolution is on in Belgium, and although nobody is riding a mtb fixie with a full sleeve of tatoos...slowly but surely we're seeing fewer hydraulic rim brakes and cable v-brakes in favor of real live disc brakes.  Every once and a while...a riser bar...can you feel the excitement?
Heb je honger?




Saturday, November 1, 2008

The LummaLoop

Everybody has their home loop.  For me, it's the lummaloop, located in Lummen, Belgium.  It's not epic but it keeps me occupied for about an hour and a half to two hours, almost all on single track.  Not scary, but scary enough to keep me from falling asleep or thinking about work.


It's super fun on the single speed, but lately I've been riding the Ridley 29er prototype, the PERFECT mtb for flanders trails, which are invariably straighter, less technical, and flatter than just about any trails you've ever done.


Luckily, I got me some curves and small little challenges on my loop, and it's kind of an ugly figure eight so I can reverse direction on some parts and keep it fresh.  Which I rarely do, home loops are not supposed to be fresh...


So in the 2 weeks I was home I did a couple laps on the lummaloop.  AND I bought me a collapsable avalanche shovel to do some trailwork.  For when I get the motivation.  Anyway pictures and such to come.