Omloop Het Nieuwsblad & A Proposal

It all began at the Denver International Airport. No wait-- let’s take a step back. It all began at the De Crescenzo house early Wednesday morning. Heather wasn’t aware that my grandfather is actually a Mafioso. Clad in his gold-chain, tinted glasses and thick Brooklyn accent, he informed Heather of the diamond heist at the Brussels Airport—our final destination. Said it could be bad for punctures.

The first things I packed for Euro Trip 2013 was the book How to Curse in Italian, an American flag scarf and a diamond skull ring. I plan on proposing to Peter Sagan with the skull ring because Jade says he has a nice AK47 jacket that it would match perfectly (as depicted).

The ring.

Peter Sagan's BA jacket

A Haiku Dedicated to Peter Sagan

Peter, oh Peter. 

Your jacket is so badass. 

Will you marry me? 

We had so many carry-ons, and the plane was so full, that we had to wear our helmets for the entire flight to Atlanta. The moment I took my helmet off, I hit my head against the airplane door. We made sure to get our last fix of America at Qdoba and boarded our plane to Belgium. We arrived in Brussels the next morning. At customs, I was asked the purpose of my trip. I responded cycling, and the desk man asked "What do you think about Lance Armstrong?". There's no escaping this question. No matter where you go. 

We found our teammates and staff (the Hillminator and Rico Suave) at passenger pick-up. After cafe, we started the drive to our sport-hotel in Sittard, Holland in the Netherlands. Our hotel is called Fit-Land. It's home to USA Cycling, a beauty school, soccer camp and NL Army training. The place has a lot of heart and has accommodated all of our kale and beet needs. They just installed an espresso machine and 50 inch TV in the cycling lounge so we can recover adequately in our Normatek space pants.

After a day of adjusting to jet lag, we made the trek to Gent, Belgium where we competed in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. It's a Flanders' preview single-day race and is full of narrow roads, steep climbs, and steep cobbled climbs. 

There were 175 starters-- twice the size of any field I've ever competed in. The style of racing over here is awesome. It felt like a traveling circus-- the chaos, the crashes in nearly every corner, the sprinting out of every corner, and the variety of languages all added something special to the racing experience.I had my drivetrain ripped off by a girl behind me in the neutral zone.  Since we were car 16, I hung out for a while. I was convinced that my race was over. To my surprise, it wasn’t! There was an extra bike for me in the team car. That’s never happened before. It was awesome. After what felt like eternity, I finally made it back to the caravan. In the process, I learned some Euro tricks, and finally made it back up to the main group. Shortly thereafter, the cobbles happened. Nothing in Boulder prepared me for those. All you can do is pedal-- really hard. We hit the first real climb and the group split up. I was in the second group and then we hit the Pattersberg. The girls in front of me unclipped and started walking, so I unclipped and started running up the side. A nice Belgian lady offered to help get me back up to speed, so I obviously accepted. I chased and chased and chased some more. This really nice racer from Finland and I did all we could to catch back up to the group. We were unsuccessful, and told to get into the broom wagon. Later that day, I received a LinkedIn request from my dropped companion. She's going to endorse me for getting dropped. 

Jade finished 17th and K Mac finished 30th. They're BA. Your first European race is a lot like losing your virginity. You can't expect it to be good the first time. Unless you're Jade Wilcoxsin. In which case, it's good every time. Jamie and Jackie barely missed the time-cut. Heather, Jamie and I waited at the Eddy Merkx Sports Center for the team, and we went back to Fitland. Stay tuned for more European adventures. Thanks for reading!