Loyal fans of my blog (I hope there are more of you besides my mum) and occasional readers, I am truly sorry for keeping you waiting for so long. I just realised that my last posting was in early January, where I made big plans of getting in top shape and doing very well in my racing season.
I can tell you that I did manage to hit my target weight of 79kg in April, but it was around this time that I moved my shop from the back room of our house to a storefront location. Since then there has been very little time for racing and training. All of my time went into rebuilding the shop in three weeks, organising too many things that came with the move and making my business run in line with the legal requirements. When possible, I also tried to make some turnover. It involved a name change, since a lot of non native English speakers did not understand the Sprocket Scientist. The shop now goes under the name of Berchem Bike Service, capturing location (our neighborhood in Antwerp), the product and the service that I think has been missing for too long in the shops that surround me.
My shop is conveniently placed across the road from a very good running store and being friendly with them seems to bring a decent amount of customers to my front door. The workshop has been filled to capacity pretty much since the opening and work hours have been longer than what I consider healthy.
All this hard work and meeting new people has been fantastic, but not for my cycling performance. My body weight is back to where I started at the beginning of the year and I definitely did not put in the mileage that is needed for successful marathon racing. I did try my luck at 24 hour death or glory road racing in June with mixed results. I finished 13 th place of 28 solo riders, but it involved a 7 hour nap after my stomach went upside down somewhere during the night. I kept on telling everybody that this body is better suited for stage racing than ultra endurance.
Early in the season, I registered for the Trans Schwarzwald stage race. Planning to ride solo, I was not so worried and planned to ride as fast as my untrained body would carry me. Until last week that was, when things got a bit scary. Tom and Johan are two of my friends and customers. They were planning to ride as a duo, but Tom had to cancel due to a knee injury. Johan asked me to ride with him and I said that would be ‘no problem’.
A bit of background information on my new team mate: he has been on a five or six day per week training schedule since December. The plan involved tons of riding, power training on the Tacx and frequent visits to the gym to pump iron. All this is supposed to peak when we leave to the Black Forest.
Thinking of this, my mind wanders back to last year’s Transalp Challenge, where I did eight days of grinding on the back wheel of MarathonMTB.com elite racer Mike Blewitt. Apparently I am talented when it comes to suffering and digging deep, I hope that this will make up for the lack of training.
So that is what’s been happening in the life of the Sprocket Scientist. Besides the stage race, there are also visits to the Focus dealer show and Eurobike in the pipeline. Stay tuned and I will try to keep you posted on what’s hot in the world of mountain bikes in 2012.
In the mean time, please check out the new website www.berchembikeservice.be or add us on Facebook. If you are in the area and need some running gear or a wetsuit, visit my friends at www.runningplanet.be