My racing stint in Belgium is just about over. As I write this, I’m still picking the pebbles out of my eyes from this weekends races…Tomorrow Tim and I are flying down to Italy where Stu and Lyne (tims wife) are picking us up at the airport in Treviso. Amazing how Ryan Air was able to blow us out tickets for 1 euro. Pretty awesome. I’ve only been hearing about rain in Italy, so it could be another epic race! I’m polishing up my mud skills over here. I don’t consider myself a ‘mudder’ but, considering over half the races here are in the peanut butter. I gotta refresh, remember that skill set that I’ve so easily forgotten racing in the states for the last two seasons. I raced in Zonnebeke,Belgium on Saturday with the my crew, Stu and Mark. I was creeping, especially during this one nasty muddy running section, I was horrendous. I needed the time out in the mud, so I raced over there. Not that nice of a course, but enough about that. Yesterday was the world cup in Hoogerhiede, Netherlands where the world championships are being held next year. If you’ve been putting off going to worlds, go in 2009, its gonna be awesome! They changed up the course a lot from the years past and regardless of how the course goes, the venue is awesome, the ability to see a lot of the race is great, the town is awesome, its a really nice place. I came across a couple articles that I thought were pretty good reads (what else am I going to do in Belgium?) One is about working out in the cold like we do in cross. The article says, if your not a wuss, there isn’t any difference in warm versus cold. The other article is for me. I’m a big mover and shaker on the bike. I always train with my ipod and I’m down with all the new music. This article is about how music at a certain BPM (beat per minute) actually stimulates something in our brains and makes us push ourselves. I had read about that once before, but since nytimes wrote about it, I guess its more official now.

In other gossipy cyclo-cross squawk, The US UCI schedule has been thrown around, take a look; I probably shouldn’t but I’ve been hearing some rumors about the US world cup while I’ve been here in Europe. I hope we can pull it off. I give a lot of credit to the people who are working on that race.

20.09.2008 Nittany Lion ‘Cross Fogelsville, PA
20.09.2008 Kinetic Systems - Tailwind Cyclo-cross 1 Springfield Township,Michigan
20.09.2008 Star-crossed Redmond
21.09.2008 Kinetic Systems - Tailwind Cyclo-cross 2 Springfield Township,Michigan
21.09.2008 Rad Racing GP Lakewood
24.09.2008 Cross Vegas Las Vegas, Nevada
27.09.2008 Mad ‘Cross 1 Sun Prairie, WI
27.09.2008 Schoolhouse ‘Cross Montpelier, VT
28.09.2008 Mad ‘Cross II Sun Prairie, WI
28.09.2008 Catamount Grand Prix Williston, Vermont
04.10.2008 Providence Cyclo-Cross Festival/World Cup Providence, RI
05.10.2008 Providence Cyclo-Cross Festival/World Cup Providence, RI
08.10.2008 Darkhorse UCI Burlington, KY
11.10.2008 Java Johnny’s - LionHearts’ Cross Middletown, Ohio
12.10.2008 Bio Wheels / United Dairy Farmers Cyclo-cross Cincinnati, Ohio
11.10.2008 Gran Prix of Gloucester 1 Gloucester, MA
12.10.2008 Gran Prix of Gloucester 2 Gloucester, MA
18.10.2008 Granogue Cross Wilmington
19.10.2008 Wissahickon Cross Philadelphia
25.10.2008 USGP of Cyclocross - Louisville Louisville, KY
26.10.2008 USGP of Cyclocross - Louisville Louisville, KY
01.11.2008 Boulder Cup Colorado
02.11.2008 Boulder Cup Boulder, Colorado
01.11.2008 The Cycle-Smart International 1 Northampton, MA
02.11.2008 The Cycle-Smart International 2 Northampton, MA
08.11.2008 Beacon Cycling & Fitness Cyclo-cross Beacon, New Jersey
09.11.2008 Highland Park Cyclo-Cross Highland Park, NJ
08.11.2008 Eco-Cross Los Angeles, CA
09.11.2008 Dam ‘Cross Los
15.11.2008 USGP of Cyclocross - Mercer Park West Windsor, New Jersey
16.11.2008 USGP of Cyclocross - Mercer Park West Windsor, New Jersey
22.11.2008 Whitmore’s Landscaping Super Cross Cup 1 Southampton
23.11.2008 Whitmore’s Landscaping Super Cross Cup 2 Southampton
22.11.2008 North Carolina Grand Prix 1 Hendersonville
23.11.2008 North Carolina Grand Prix 2 Hendersonville
29.11.2008 Baystate Cyclocross Sterling Massachusetts
29.11.2008 The Jingle Cross Rock 1 Iowa City
30.11.2008 The Jingle Cross Rock 2 Iowa City
06.12.2008 Continental Championships Boulder, Colorado
06.12.2008 USGP of Cyclocross - Portland Portland, Oregon
07.12.2008 USGP of Cyclocross - Portland Portland, Oregon
06.12.2008 Lower Allen Classic Camp Hill, PA
06.12.2008 NBX Grand Prix Warwick, Rhode Island
07.12.2008 Capital Cross Classic Reston, Virginia
07.12.2008 NBX Grand Prix Warwick, Rhode Island
13.12.2008 US Cyclo-Cross Nationals Kansas City, KS
14.12.2008 US Cyclo-Cross Nationals Kansas City, KS

This is exclusive, Tim has made a new discovery. When the T.V says 60% chance of rain…that actually translates to ‘it will rain 60% of the time during through out the day. Not, a chance of rain, like your led to believe. Thanks to Patagonia to giving us all our rain gear this year, Belgium would have cracked me long ago with out it. Our main man Stu from cyclocrossworld.com has arrived and is in the building! Thats a nice feeling, having someone so meticulous working on the bikes and equipment is awesome. Anyone who’s had someone as good as Stu working on bikes knows… a mechanic that knows each riders little particular things like how the hoods should be angled, making sure the tension is perfect on the brakes and having just the right amount of pull on the brakes, all those things make such a difference. He’s that good and I owe a lot to him for his effort this year. It’s always harder to write a good update when you get your can kicked all over France and Belgium like I did on Sunday at the world cup. I’ve been training hard and I know where I’m at, I’m not going to focus on one result over the weekend, I’m more concerned with getting a good result in Italy in two weeks and I think thats going to be the objective for the coming days and I’m on track for that. Basically I’ve been riding and training which has been keeping me busy. The weather in Belgium at this time of the year isn’t luxurious as you can imagine. It’s been raining a lot and today there were 100k winds coming over from the UK today. I managed to get out for a while, but it took a lot out of my tank just fighting the wind. Last night Tim, Lyne, Stu and I went into Brussels, we hit the english book store and got some good reading material for the next cpl weeks. Also migghhht have ate a waffle and even found Mr. Jelly Belly at ‘chocopolis’ in Brussels! I’ve given away plently of Jelly Belly’s in Belgium but I hadn’t actually seen them for sale, so it was a surprise for me to see the man over here, he’s everywhere! Lyne even actually had some sport beans with her and we showed those to the owner, but he didn’t think Belgians would enjoy them! He’s crazy, of course they’d like them! They are delicious! Last week we headed out to lunch with our man David from Ridley. He let me take a mountain bike from a photo shoot he had just finished up. Word on the street is that Ridley just developed an extremely light carbon single speed mtb. As for my experience, It was cool to be back on the mtn. bike. It was a blast from the past. Check this beast out. SRAM equipt’d, rock shox, the whole shabanga bang. The trails out here in the forests of Belgium are cool, the town actually cuts out all the brush in the forests here. No thorn bushes and old trees layin’ on the ground, its like a manicured forest, makes it look cool when your riding, kept me entertained thats for sure. Alright, looking forward to getting out there this weekend and I hope I can report back with some better results and some good stories! Seeya!

With 3 weeks left now of my season most guys are worried about getting to the races healthy, un-injured and in good form. A lot of hurdles jump out sometimes and create something I call “Season Enders” Here are some of the temptations in the kitchen that seem to be adding up and could present a ’season ender.’ I realized this year I’m being good about what I’m eating, maybe its less stress, maybe its more determination, whatever, its something. I took some pictures on my phone of some of the ‘items’ I happened to peruse before I actually settled on a bowl of granola and some eggs. Season enders don’t just have to deal with food either, they can be that big night of drinking and doing something dumb that results in time off the bike. It could be your girlfriend breaking your heart, it could be jury duty for weeks, maybe riding with out your helmet (well that could be a “life ender”) Anyways, you get the point. Be careful of these obsticals in the final weeks of your season(s). I came across this interesting article on NYTimes.com. It’s all about how people drink alcohol in the cold. I’ve always wondered if it was effective in keeping you warm because they do this at a lot of big euro cx races. Alcohol at the finish line in some sort of tea w/ honey. Taste great, not going to hear a peep out of me on that. I first got this concoction in Switzerland when I was a junior back in 2001! Look at this article, it smashes that euro logic down, ends up not being not so great after all. Check it out here! Today is the Belgian nationals or the 1st of 2 world championships. The Belgie champs is a mini worlds. I’m going with Sven for the Jersey, but thats obvious. Tim J put his money on another rider, I can’t believe it. We’ll see. Just noticed Radomir Simunek didn’t win his national title. Bummer. I’m gonna try to persuade him to come over and race in the states next yr. He’s a nice guy and always goes out of his way to say hi to me at the races. Maybe he’ll come out for cross’ vegas too. On one last note. I noticed for everyone thats not making the flight over to worlds in Italy. It’s going to be live on WCSN. Heres the link to that I should mention, direct flight from JFK to Venice on Delta is 600 bucks round-trip. Alright, I’m out to train, seeya!