Justin Lindine was fortunate enough to Travel to Belgium along w/ Jerome Townsend to participate in the Geoff Proctor Program. These are updates from his journey.

UPDATE #1

  Today was the first race day of the camp.  It was a relatively small race in the town of Middelkerke which is on the northern coast of Belgium.  From what I was told it is a race normally decided by strong coastal winds and sand.  Today however was a little bit of a different story.  It was very cold, as it has been for the past week or so here, and the snow that the area received was still in place on the course.  By the time we raced it was a treacherous mix of snow and one "good" muddy line through it all.  That being said the course could have been fun, with some wide open sections, a nasty run-up and some fast 180's, along with a good amount of spectators for a smaller race.  However, this is where my personal story goes awry. 
  It was race day and my bikes still weren't here.  To say I'm a little stressed out may be understatement.  Fortunately, I was able to borrow the loaner bike that the camp has to race on.  Unfortunately, the bike is a good four sizes too big, the rear shifter sort of sometimes works, and I had to use some borrowed pedals because as you might guess, they are in my bike case as well.  Now, I don't like to make trivial excuses for bad rides, and a good rider can make a bad bike work.  But, it definitely didn't add to a day where I might not have felt that good anyway.  So as I sprinted off the start line with my sweet second row call up (right behind f'ing Sven Nys!) I struggled to make my shifter go through the gears, and sat more or less on the top tube (with the bars higher then my now slammed seat).  Long story short, it wasn't the best race I've ever had, and I wound up getting lapped which is not great.  Hopefully it was at least worth the effort and a blowing out of the legs will do me good come the world cup in Zolder this weekend.  Hopefully as well, my bikes will make it here tomorrow and I can get out a bit and check out the countryside.  I'll keep you all posted....with what I am expecting to be improving news.

Justin Lindine

UPDATE #2 ( December 2009)

And a Merry Christmas to all.  I hope your holidays are full of good cheer, good food, and maybe even a bike ride. 
 
For Christmas here in Belgium, Santa delivered my bikes a day early to my ecstatic jubilation.  I quickly built them up and even managed to squeeze out a quick ride before the pre-dinner meetings and then the big Christmas dinner shindig.  To be honest, until I saw Mario in the kitchen wearing a Santa outfit, replete with a beard and sunglasses, I had kind of forgotten that it was Christmas evening.  After some general celebration, a champagne toast, and a fantastic meal provided by Els and co, it was nice to settle down with a book in bed and relax a little knowing that my bikes were here and tomorrow I could get a real ride in and check out the scenery a bit. 
 
And that brings me to this evening.  Christmas day; the day before the World Cup in Zolder.  The four inches of snow we were supposed to get didn't materialize instead coming down as a steady rain through the night and a light drizzle today.  I got out for an opener ride with my teammate Jerome and we wove our way through the farm fields over to the canal and the bike path that parallels it.  Despite the rain and the 38ish temperature, it was a pretty fun ride, bringing us past windmills (both the new plane prop style and one particularly old traditional..think Don Quixote), the high-speed train, and completed by a return trip into the brutal Belgian head winds.  If you've ever wondered just why the races over here are always shattering into echelons every time they round a corner...well I can tell you.  With roads that we would consider at best a lane and a half wide, when you make a turn into the wind it's easy to imagine how  a field of guys would suddenly come apart if the pressure was on at the front. 
 
Anyhow, after the ride and some lunch I took a stroll around town on the cruiser bike to go to the ATM and scope the scene around town.  Which leads me to exactly how awesome the bike commuting network is here.  Everywhere you go there are bike lanes with their own separate signage, canal paths, and respectful drivers. Really cool.  And so is town...kind of your quintessential European village full of narrow streets, small specialty shops and restaurants and a rural-meets-city lifestyle that is so seldom scene anymore stateside.  
 
So here I am on the eve of the world cup nervous about racing, about the conditions, about the aggressive Europeans who will battle ( and I mean bumping elbows out hip-checking war) for spots as insignificant as my 39th the other day.  I mean really?  This guy was ready to crash to keep me from coming around him.  So different from the races I've done where I know everyone and we're all relatively polite to each other.  Oh well...take it as it comes I guess.  It should be something to experience tomorrow in any case.  And since apparently Niels Albert just got them to consent to putting salt down on the venerable Zolder Formula One course, maybe the conditions won't be an utter mess.  Tomorrow we'll see.  For now, have a merry Christmas everyone...I'll keep you posted
 
Justin

UPDATE #3 (Zolder)

So sorry for the delay in-between updates here.  I know a lot of you are anxiously wondering how things are going over here.  Especially if you got a chance to look at results and see that I didn't have a stellar couple of days.  Unfortunately the results don't lie.  It's been a rough couple of days over here in Belgium land.  But I'm trying to stay upbeat and look at this all as one big learning expierence..for better or for worse.
 
Saturday was the world cup in Zolder that is held on the grounds of the Formula One race course.  As we rolled into the entrance road to the course it was already obvious that it was a mob scene.  There were people walking from a long way out in what was reminiscent of a football game or concert in the states.  When we finally got into the infield it was overwhelming the size of the event.  There were jumbo trons showing footage from all around the course, people everywhere and team trailers and buses being mobbed by fans in search of an autograph from Nys or Albert or Wellens.  Even our humble American outfit was approached for our "cards" and autographs, although it was easy enough to see the disappointment on their faces when we told them that "no, Todd Wells and Ryan Trebon are not in fact here".  In any case, the course was pretty intense, starting and finishing on the straight away of the road circuit, ridiculous run ups and steep descents.  Even after a few warm up laps it was obvious that the racing, especially the first lap was going to be an intense fee-for all.  It didn't disappoint.  There were crashes and pushing and I got forcibly pushed through a gap by someone behind me that I was really sure I wasn't going to fit in. After the bedlam of the first lap I settled into something of a rhythm and was trying to bridge up to a group just in front of me with about four laps to go when disaster struck.  In an attempt to make up time before the road section I was pushing the pace into a steep sandy downhill that only had one rut.  When my front wheel blew out of the rut it came to an abrupt halt pitching me over the handlebars and down the slope headfirst into the corner post at the bottom.  Analysis # 1 about the difference between European cross races from American: The course posts are not the flimsy 1/4" things we're uses to.  They're 3" thick posts that have been augured into the ground.  The lesson from all of this is don't hit them with your head...it hurts.  After I started being able to see straight and hear through the ringing in my ears I rapidly became aware of spectators speaking to me in two different languages, neither of which could I understand even if I hadn't just given myself a mild concussion.  "No, I am not sava bien, and no I can't get back in the fiet race."  Sigh.  As I hobbled my way back to the van, head hung in pain and shame, I was both applauded and made fun of by drunk fans...it was a bit of an emotional roller coaster just to make it to where I could sit down and be alone for a bit. 
 
After that debacle, it was hard to psychologically rally for the next days race in Deigem.  I was down, sore, and not entirely sure why the form that was carrying my so well a month ago had seemingly left me in the dust just when I needed it.  Trying to put all that aside though, I pulled myself together, packed my kit bag and watched out the window as the rain poured down, all but ensuring that it would be muddy as hell.  It was a quiet car ride.  As expected, the course was muddy.  And had a huge climb through the town streets, and had about a thee-hundred meter running sections, and barriers, and a steep as shit run-up.  All of which might make it sound horrible, but instead it was maybe the coolest race I’ve ever done.  Which isn’t to say that my results were all that good.  As a matter of fact they straight up weren’t.  I got lapped shortly before the finish line as Neils Albert came ripping by me in his World Champion stripes.  But the atmosphere, and energy of this race were incredible.  There were so many people, more then Zolder.  People lined every inch of the course.  The only way I could think to describe it afterward was like an NFL game in the states.  It was that kind of rowdy, intense 80% drunk crowd.  And in similar numbers.  Did I mention that this race was at night, under the lights?  Giant stadium lighting cast down on the course as we raced through alleyways, and an incredible amount of power sucking mud.  And despite everything, I finally felt like I was racing again.  Not strongly but at least I was racing.  My fickle form left me a little at odds with the courses long climb through town and the short but difficult uphill grass section, but I felt like I was railing some of the more technical aspects of the course to the accolades of some of the crowd.  I focused on riding smoothly and making as few mistakes as possible, and I think, if it hadn’t been for a mid-lap period where I had to pull on my shifter cable to manage any gear changes at all, I would have finished on the lead lap.  So, despite everything, the wishing I was riding better, the never ending 20 questions I play with myself about what I can do to go faster, the wondering where I went wrong in trying to structure the last few weeks of my very long season, despite all if that I do feel like I’m learning a lot.  I just wish I could have that extra 5 percent I need right now.
 
After the race I had to try and make my way through the mealy of the course and the thousands upon thousands of people working their way back to their cars.  And then something amazing happened.  One person would yell something in Flemish and everyone who was walking would turn around and see me and open up a path.  Thousands of people parted themselves so that I could ride through them.  It didn’t matter that I had just gotten lapped, or that I wasn’t Belgian at just that moment.  And sure, there were some of them who laughed at me and I’m called me a stupid American, but have you heard the drunken people at professional football games?  I mean it could be a lot worse.  And the amount of respect and adoration they have for this sport, and for those who are out there fighting it out under the lights in atrocious conditions is humbling.  They are pragmatic to be sure.  They do not think any of us (the US riders) will be the next world cup winner, and they are probably right.  But they respect us non-the-less, and appreciate the entertainment and the effort we leave out there on the course.  We have a lot to learn as racers from a country that eats, sleeps, and breathes bike racing.  And remembering all of this I am just keeping my head as upward (and as far away from posts) as possible and looking at each race as a chance to learn something and maybe have it all come together for the results that I think I’m capable of.  Tomorrow is  Loenhout…another chance for redemption.  Stay tuned.

UPDATE #4

Below is an update/ the entry I just wrote for the EuroCrossCamp blog on.com.  Please excuse any redundancy in sentiment that this update might contain.  Enjoy.
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And the hits just keep coming:
 
It was a nightmare stop and go roller coaster before we even got to the race.  I couldn’t tell if the surges in traffic were making me more or less nauseous then the radio “Donna” mix of incredibly bad American pop with Belgian techno-esque noise.  In either case those of us in the back seat were rapidly reaching terminal sick state accompanied by the desperate need to pee.  Great. 
 
Step one after arriving at the venue was to miss the access to our parking zone.  Step two was to use the facilities between a team sprinter van and some nice Belgian persons shrubbery. Ahh…  After that desperate evacuation of fluid and some much needed fresh air there was the question of this whole race thing we were supposed to be getting ready for.  The weather was pretty atrocious…I mean, nice typical Belgian weather.  In other words it was 2 degrees Celsius and raining.  It doesn’t take a degree in soil science to guess that rain, plus bike racers plus a farmer’s field equals all sort of pasty, peanut-buttery mud.  Sweet!  Because really, my bike has not had enough beat into it over the last couple of days.  Sigh. 
 
Morale in Camp USA was not what you would call “high” upon arrival.  There were shivering U23 riders milling around, waiting for their ride home.  Unfortunately their race was still being called in the distance.  Me and my two other “profs” (Troy and Brian) sat in the warming van after riding our one course recon lap pondering the deeper questions of motivation and purpose in addition to line choice, dismount or ride, and some just general complaining about how hard it was going to suck to slog through a tractor pull of mud for an hour.  Our musings did nothing to change the weather or the course however, and soon it was time to ride the trainers and do something of a warm up.
 
The course at Loenhout is nothing if not a really good example of an inventive use of open featureless space.  When I say that  a lot of it is just a farm field, I’m not kidding.  But through the magic of design and a lot of sponsorship dollars, out of this field rise multiple flyovers, and a  pump-track like whoop section (if you think this sounds like fun, go to your local BMX track, put 20lbs of air in the tires of your cross bike and try it out: it’s terrifying at high speed, and I like pump tracks).  Once again I was amazed at the crowds at these races.  I mean, who wants to come out on a day like this: sane animals are hibernating or migrating right about now.  But despite this there were thousands upon thousands of Belgians making their way into the rainy wetness of some random field to watch us accomplish what a tractor and a plow would in about half the time.  As I made my way around the course trying not to look like a flailing idiot too much of the time, I rode through clouds of cigar and cigarette smoke so thick I could almost taste it.  This is racing.  This is awesome.  I’m riding well.  I’m being lapped by Sven Nys.  Sigh. 
 
It took forever to figure out how to get back to the car.  I was cold, dejected and not wanting to stare into the faces of a public so excited by this sport.  “How many fences are there in this place?”  “Where the hell am I?”  But in reality the people were polite and eventually, after me looking dazed and confused for long enough, gave me directions back to town and the parking lot.  It’s amazing how you can ride so many laps around a labyrinthine course without having any understanding of where it actually goes.  So now we were back in the van, piling wet muddy clothes into bags to deal with later.  Another day in the books and still not much of a result to speak of.  Troy managed a pretty solid result riding in with a group containing mountain biking icon Jose Hermidia for 30th.  Not too shabby.  The rest of us, or at least myself, spent the van ride back thankfully a little less motion sick albeit a little more reflective.  As I sit staring out the window at the Belgian countryside passing by I’m already thinking about the next race, and the bike maintenance I have to try and get done in the next couple of days, and what I’ve learned here that I can take with me into next season and beyond.  It’s been a humbling day for a lot of us to be sure, but I know that at least for myself, I’m trying to soak in as much experience as the Belgian mud soaks in the rain….tomorrow is another day.      

Justin

UPDATE #5 (It might Snow !)

So it’s been a few days since the last update.  I’d say a lot transpired, but in reality a good bit of it has been down time.  Which is good because everyone, myself included, were beginning to look a little ragged around the edges with racing and travel.  So after Loenhout we had theoretically two days until the next race in Baal. This meant that Wednesday was pretty much spent as a rest day.  An opportunity to get the bikes running smoothly again, do some laundry and some grocery shopping and shop around for some choice Belgian gifts for our families.  And then, the highlight of the day, a trip to the bowling alley for an inter-team competition. 

So let me be the first to say that cyclists should pretty much stick to cycling.  There is a reason that we are good at what we do and it does not, as a general rule of thumb (at least in my experience) relate very well to other sports, games or hobbies.  The only thing that caries over is the intensity and competitive drive, no matter how misguided.  So let me pain this picture for you:  seventeen skinny dorks drinking a smattering of cokes (and some waters) in the midst of a relatively small town bowling alley surrounded by a mix of Belgian club team bowlers and families with little kids.  Most of who by the way are bowling better then us; and I mean the little kids, not the club guys.  In any case, despite out ineptitude and the fact that the highest score of our group was a 140, we had a pretty good time and managed to liven up an otherwise sedated Wednesday evening at the bowling alley.  Go team USA!

Thursday was a transition day if you will.  For the guys that were planning on racing the next day in Baal it was openers and rest.  For those that weren’t it was a longer training day.  For me it was decision-making morning.  I had initially intended to race the last three days of camp in a row doing Baal, St. Niklass, and then one other that I don’t know how to spell right this second and don’t have the name in front of me.  Suffice it to say it’s in Holland somewhere.  Anyway, the case was raised that this plan was slightly ambitious.  And that Baal would probably be the muddiest, most power intensive course in the camp.  So I was left with a debate going on in my head.  One side of me was sore, tired and of the mindset that I would benefit from one more day of training.  On the other hand, I came here to race and there was a race to go to, and wouldn’t I be letting myself down if I didn’t race?  Sigh…

Such are the debates cyclists are always having with themselves.  A never-ending series of inner debates ranging from what or what not to eat to racing schedule.  After several cups of coffee I finally decided that it might be in my best interest and in the interest of results to take the one more day and then race the last two days of camp instead.  After finally making the call on this front, I had the relief of having made a decision and the anxiety of now wondering what to do with my training for the day.  Luckily, this one didn’t take long. 

We set off for a foreign country. Four American conquistadors on a pilgrimage to cycling Mecca.  We were going to Roubaix.  Like all great quests, this one was fraught with problems from the beginning.  First off we didn’t, between the four of us, speak either of the languages we would be encountering on this ride. Second, we didn’t really know where we were going.  And last, but not least, it was raining and intermittently sleeting with a roar of a head wind and dark gray clouds moving quickly over the uninterrupted fields of Belgium.  No problem.  The folded map went in my pocket, the rain capes came out, and away we went each of us (or at least myself) narrating in my head the story of how we were emulating out heroic hardmen of the cobbled classics unconcerned with things as trivial as the elements in our quest for glory on the velodrome of Robaix.  

So it was cold.  And wet.  But we soldiered on and after some fumbled direction getting from a French speaking Belgian that required the use of a lot of hand symbols and head nodding, and only one altercation with a motorist despite riding on some busy suburban streets (and after the car cut us off and we yelled our newly learned “hofferdoma!” or what the hell in Flemish, and the people on the sidewalk agreed and also yelled at the car), we rolled up to the hallowed gates of cycledom.  Making the right hand turn into the sports complex that houses the Roubaix velodrome was akin to a spiritual moment.  I may be biased, and a self admitted bike geek, but as a racer it’s not easy to avoid the goose bumps that creep up the back of your neck and arms thinking of all the greats who have made this same turn to the roar of a stadium of waiting fans.  The track may have been closed, and the bleacher empty when we got there, but all of us stood at the gates taking the obligatory pictures and not having to strain our imaginations very hard to hear the cheers and smell the beer and wish for nothing more then to hoist a giant cobble over our heads in victory.  For nothing more then the best.   
            After another rest day/openers Saturday, today, was St. Niklaas.  After two days of more frigid temperatures the mud that had racked our racing and especially Baal (which, by the way, I’m really kind of glad I didn’t do) had frozen pretty solid and the course in Baal was fast.  As the day warmed slightly under a hazy sun the top layer of frozen mud loosened up a bit and the turns became increasingly greasy and would even more so as the race progressed.  I had a pretty good call up-third row- and was on my way to having a good start when the cluster f began.  Three turns into the course someone goes down. I dive to the right inside of the turn to avoid the bodies along with some oversized (read tall) euro.  When we bump shoulders, he decides that the thing to do is punch me and knock me off the bike.  Only then the asshole (excuse the French) has to put a foot down anyway to avoid the crash.  And then he takes that opportunity to look directly at me and then use his heel to taco my front wheel.  That’s right…you read that right.  The SOB deliberately put his foot through my front wheel.  WTF!  Anyhow after a little exchange where I was less then polite I remounted luckily able to get the wheel to spin cleanly and make my way to the pit.  The good news is I didn’t lose more then a few spots.  The bad news, because it was the first lap and no one thought I would be pitting yet, my bike was not out in the pit lane.  Commence the standing and waiting while the whole field passes by.  Ok…this is not a problem.  I rally.  I chase so, so hard.  I catch groups and blow by them without pausing.  I am actually, for once having a really good race.  I catch no less then 25 people. 

Unfortunately when your coming from the 60’s an hour is just not long enough.  I end up 31st.  And despite the drama, and the bad luck, I am happy with my race.  Without the whole wheel debacle I am confident I would have been inside the top 25.  I felt really good on the bike.  The course was a perfect mix of twisty slightly sloppy fast rolling fun.  There was minimal running and even some singly track. Pretty sweet. 
Oh, and one bit of European trivia…barriers are way less cool over here.  Out of all the races I’ve done so far I’ve only encountered one set of double barriers. I love it.  Muddy run ups, tricky off cambers and stairs are a way cooler way to integrate the dismounting into cyclocross.  I don’t know why everyone feels like we have to have to have barriers all the time, but clearly it’s not necessary, and I for one wouldn’t miss them all that much.  But enough of my diatribe against barriers.  I am just short legged and probably biased. 

Tomorrow is another day, another race, and the conditions might just be epic.  There is a forecast of snow and 6 below Celsius.  Awesome.  Out on a bang.  I’ll let you all know how it goes.  Wish me luck.
 
Justin 

UPDATE #6 (the end is the beginning is the end.)  

For the last race of the camp we made the foray into the Netherlands for the GP Groenendaal.  Those of us still left to race were faced with snowy, icy conditions that mother nicely decided to bookend our trip with.  Snow for arriving, snow for leaving, and lots of Belgian mud in between.   The course was tricky to say the least.  Had it been dry it would have been pretty interesting with far more swoopy turns then any of the other courses we had raced on.  However, with the combination of a few inches of fresh snow and the ground being frozen solid, it turned into a race of fewer errors and who was the most aggressive passer.  There were few wide-open sections and even fewer good lines.  It was like racing on one ribbon of very frozen single track where the corners were all lined with ice.  After a crash in the start stretch that saw me miss the bikes on the ground only to be pin-balled off someone’s shoulder and straight into the post mounted TV camera with my shoulder (still nursing a bruised shoulder) I settled into the game of figuring out how to try and move up when going even one mph faster through the turns meant about a 70% increase in the likelihood of crashing.  Given the conditions it was a course that really favored those with good “snap” out of turns, because as you could carry no momentum through them the space in between turns was spent either accelerating out of one or decelerating for the next.  I had a pretty solid race, finishing up in 33rd out of about 70 starters.  I found it consoling that former world champion of cyclocross Lars Boom, who started in my row because of his lack of UCI points (he’s been racing on the road more now), was only able to make it into 22nd.  It was really that hard of a course to move up on.  If the person in front of you really wanted to guard their position with a leg out in the turns etc, it was extremely difficult to pass.  And just like that the racing was over and the off-season began.  I even had some cookies as a celebratory symbolism to no longer needing a post race recovery shake….umm cookies are way better then protein powder.
 
After the race, and a long ride back to the house due to some weather related traffic, it was the race to pack bikes, wheels and everything else in preparation for an early morning departure to Brussels airport.  Some creative packing allowed me to accommodate the newly enacted one carry-on rule and still not have my bike case or 4-wheel bag be over weight.  And luckily, somehow, the baggage gods decided to smile on me and grant me a reprieve for all my good karma lately and I was able to check my double bike case and said wheel bag for $50 instead of the possible $250.  Sweet!  Now all I could hope for is that they make it to JFK on the same plane I was on.  After spending what seemed, through the magic of flying backwards in time zones, like an infinitesimal amount of time either on planes or waiting for them I made it safe and sound to my grandmothers house in Harrison where my Dad was waiting to pick me up.  Oh, and amazingly, my bike and bag made it as well.  Home sweet home.  Damn it’s cold!     
 
It might just be that I spend too much time thinking about bikes and racing, but I am always finding the allegorical ways that racing provides lessons for real life.  The ups and downs of a season, the reaching of certain goals only to have others fall short is something I try and carry with me in dealing with other aspects of my life.  As my European campaign is over and I’m writing this while sitting on my cozy futon in my cozy house looking out the window at a world blanketed in a cold white shroud, it’s easy to cast a reflective eye back over a season with a little more perspective then you are sometimes granted in the heat of the moment.  There are ways in which I could look at my trip to Belgium and be disappointed at not having the best of luck, or perhaps even my best of form.  On the other hand, and I think this is the important part, is that I got to experience something I’ve always dreamed about.  When you’re lined up on the start line it’s hard to take a moment and realize what’s going on and where you are.  But now, as I think about it, I realize that I was lined up at races with the highest level of competition in the world.  Until cyclocross makes it as an Olympic sport the World Cup and Super Prestige series will constitute the highest level of obtainable competition.
 
 It seems like a long time ago sometimes, but when I was fifteen and first racing mountain bikes for the first time, this moment couldn’t be conceived of in my over imaginative brain.  That I would some day reach a level where I could line up with some of the best athletes in the world in any sport was unfathomable to me.  So am I disappointed that I got lapped in some races where I think if I’d had that extra three percent I had in November I could have finished higher up?  Am I disappointed that some jerk stepping on my wheel and a missed bike change derailed my best race? Yes.  I never go into a race without wanting to give it my best and do well.  On the other hand, I did give it everything I had, I got a few solid results, and I know I have a lot more work still to do.  But the experience has been an instrumental learning curve, like deep immersion in a language.  I have thrown more shoulders in a week then I have in the past three seasons.  I think I’ll be less intimidated by starts, and certainly more cautious of guarding my position in races.  I need to run more, and practice massive power outputs like those necessary to blast through hundreds of yards of six-inch deep mud.  And despite all of these shortcomings and things I need to improve, I am less disheartened then looking forward to how to improve. 
 
A few days ago I would have told you I couldn’t wait till the off-season.  Now, after not riding for a whole two days I am already itching to go out and train super super hard for the upcoming road season. (I know, I know, I can hear you all telling me that I need more then a two day break…I’m trying)  This trip has been motivational and inspirational.  It is the simultaneous achievement of a dream and a stepping-stone to what I hope will be further success.  It was an honor and a pleasure, and I hope I get to go back again next year with even more learned, and newfound motivation.  Thank you all again for helping to make this possible for me.  It was amazing.