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Last Saturday was my last hard effort on the cross bike with a number pinned on my back. It was at 3x World Champion Erwin Vervecken's retirement race party. As it was more of a retirement than a real race, it felt really good to play on the bike without any pressure to ride hard. Watching Erwin hang the bike up for good was a tough moment for many of us who have admired him for a long time now. For the full ten years i have raced cyclo-cross he has been one of the top guys in the sport. Thankfully he is staying in the sport in some capacity. His new job it with Golazo sports, setting up cyclocross and mountain bike events for them.
You can CLICK HERE to read it on CYCLOCROSS Magazine's website. Of course there are lots of photos too so you can feel like you were there.
My first week of "off-season" has been busier than i would have thought. I had all of one day to recover before starting for mountain bike season. Today was my first day on the new (second-hand) mountain bike and it felt strange. I think the last time i rode a mountain bike was six or seven years ago. Jonas joined me on his road bike for this momentus occasion. As i watched him soft-pedal alongside me, i realized how he must have felt all those times when I rode with him on my skinny-wheeled cross bike while he chugged along on his monster truck mountain bike. Big difference.
Tomorrow we will join the Begijnendijk ride for the second time this week. we ride there and back too so it turns out to be about four hours on the bike - perfect for "base training" I suppose. I gotta do something so i am not so out of shape for long rides when it comes time to do 400 mountainous kilometers in 4 days when we compete in the Tour of Cyprus later on in the month. That ought to be an adventure! I do look forward to riding with the sun warming my quads. I'll be the one with my sleeves and shorts hiked up real high to let the sun shine everywhere! Luckily i dont have to worry about sunburns thanks to Doc Martin's of Maui sun block which is sweatproof - and smells like pina colada to get me in the holiday mood!

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