The BIG deal

World Freakin Championships….wholllyy molly…that sums up what I felt before, during and after the day! My day couldn’t of gone any better, I loveeeeeeeeeeeeeee when things click. I owe it to a lot of people that helped my day go smooth… I will start with my teammates…always pumped and ready to rock! Greg for telling me NO PAIN 3 times in the morning in a 30min span! Neil and Andy keeping the team area organized and making sure riders were looked after. Lastly Dave our mechanic, he kept the bike going! Now the race was super intense, the most spectators I have ever seen. The most important fans being my Mom and Sonja! You could hear there motherly cheers on every step that I took on the stairs. My race prep seemed to run smooth, great warm up, hit the trainer for 45mins. I did a few intervals and couple leg speed jumps. You had to sign in 15mins to 30mins before the start so I rolled over did that and then just chilled and rode the start section. I had a pretty good call up, 31st. When the gun sounded I put my head down and braced for elbow rubbing. A lot of pushing went on so you had to really hold your line. The first few laps went great I was sitting in 45th and I was in a group with 6 guys. I took a deadly spill half way threw. I decided to run in to a fence with my hand, lets just say the fence won! It stunned me for a second but it made me loose contact with the group. I ended up catching one of them that fell off the pace and beat him to the line. I placed 50th, not bad for my first World Championships. Along with myself and the other Team Canada guys, I think we all had great days, except Aaron, he got in a fight with a fence and yes the fence won! For the rest of the day I packed my bike, chilled and enjoyed many deserved cold beers.

Some of you might be curious, but Yes I did watch Rocky 4 the night before my race. The best underdog story of our time. NO PAIN

Tara, Mike and Greg raced the next day, they all had sweet rides. I do have to say that Team Canada, yeah we are kind of a big deal!!!

I am home now for 2 weeks, time to do a little snowboarding and relax!!!

Thanks guys for a great 5 weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Check out the photos on Canadian Cyclist
http://www.canadiancyclist.com/

The last 2 days!

here are a bunch of pics, enjoy...it has been a fun few days.............3days...WORLDS

The NEW house

The Move

The big move was yesterday; we packed up and moved from our Tielt-Winge house to the Cycling Center in Hertzberg. The Center is a very nice facility and offers a lot of beneficial services that really help us out. For example steam room, massages, full garage with tools and a very comfortable chilling room. For the big Lance Armstrong fans, in the garage hangs one of his TT bikes. Once again Greg and I roomed together; we have a good rhythm why mess it up now! What else is there about this place? Oh yeah I was very disappointed when I left our other house because of the location of the bakery. It was very close and had amazing bread. I just got in from a ride and noticed that there was a bakery super close to our new house. I stopped in to check it out and wow they have a bigger selection. I am going to Brugge in the next hour, try out the tourist thing. I will be putting up pictures of the house tonight so stay tuned!

World Cup

I have to start off by saying the trip has been an eye opening experience, definitely learning a lot from each race!
The World Cup course was a very interesting course it had many elements that helped out every type of racer. It had tight muddy corners, pavement sections, technical down hills, for sure my favorite course so far. The whole day for me seemed to go smoother then the last couple of race days. First we had a Team Canada set up with trainers, tools, mechanics, helpers and most important a good group of athletes! Going to races on your own trying to find strangers to pit for you really effects you, it takes you away from focusing on the race. Neil organized everything and it really seemed to work well!
Now for the dirt on my race. I had a great warm up on the trainer, I felt great. The start to the race is always pretty intense. I have a really good UCI ranking so I get called up in the top 20, second row is pretty sweet. Niels Albert was right in front of me along with Zdenek Stybar (World Champion). The start was a fast road section for about 500m. Like every race it was crazy fast and hard. I kept the rubber side down and put the elbows out. I railed the first few corners and was sitting in the top 30, I found myself around a few Americans and Aaron my fellow Canadian! We tried to hold the wheels but the group we were in just had to much for us! We fell back to 40th place, that's where we both found a great groove. It worked out well that we were together, we just kept the pace and worked hard to close the gap on a group of 3 that was just 15 seconds up on us. On the second last lap I dropped my chain on this sketchy down hill and it cost me Aaron's wheel. I think we would have caught the group, the Canadian train was moving! Too bad for my small mechanical but we both seemed to have a lot better race then the past World Cup! That is pretty much how the race finished, big improvement for both of us.
Now Greg, Tara, Shaun, Aaron and I move to the Cycling Center to begin our prep for Worlds
6days!!!!

Busy Day

Today we had an action packed day in Tielt-Winge . A very bad storm came and dropped a pile of rain on us. Along with the rain a few tress dropped in to our backyard. The day was a normal rest day, woke up had some breakfast and headed to the grocery store. When we got home Aaron mentioned to us that the Police and a neighbor had stopped by to talk to the owner of our house about a tree that fell on to his fence. Greg, Aaron and I went and investigated and discovered that a few trees had in fact fallen on to the guys fence. That is when Stef our English connection came out to check out the damage. Lets just say a house full of Canadians, yeah we can chop trees. Aaron and I aka the lumberjacks, started to begin demo of the tree. Stef supplied the chainsaw and the three of us went to town! The Belgians know how to ride bikes, the Canadians can cut trees!!! It was like batman with the bat signal in the sky, we see fallen tree we get to work. We had this massive tree cut and removed in and around 1hr 30mins…we get shit done!!! We had a deadly trio for the tree cutting, Aaron from Edmonton, in the army reserve. Stef, from England, Cycling Manager. Kyle Douglas, Ontario, son of Cris Douglas! Yeah watch out people!!!

Enjoy the pictures of tree removal 2007!

quote of the day

Shaun says, "why are you watching the info channel?"

Kyle answeres, "because it is playing better music then the music channneelllsss !!!"

end quote!

Check out this link, it is one of my starts. If you look closely you can see Greg, I am right beside him...its tough we are going pretty quick! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2353031102151934051

Racing in europe,!!!

Look at those crowds...intense...!!!

Tara is not a happy camper after stairs like that!

Stef and myself talking during the womens race!

Greg and my room in France, hold me I'm cold!!!

Hi I'm kyle from canada eh, where you at where you be eh!

oui?...non? huhhuh!!

Dear Diary,
I arrived back in Belgium a few days ago from viva la France!!! France was amazing fun, a lot of bonjouring went on! It was a very cool experience because in 6hrs I was in 3 different countries, Belgium, Luxemburg and France. I had 2 goals while I was in France and that was to have a good race and to try as many things that had French in there name. Here is my list of incomplete and completed ventures:
French Toast- negative
French Loaf- positive
French Cappuccino- positive
French Fries- negative
Perrier- positive, I know it doesn’t have the word French in it, but common its Perrier!!
French dressing- positive

That’s all I could think of while I was there…

Now let’s dive in to the racing portion of the adventure in France. First the course was the hardest course I have ever ridden. A lot of flat open grass sections that were so saturated that you would sink 2 inches down…yeah not fun. The course was limited to things that I am good at…Climbing! I tried to stay positive but I just knew it was going to be a true test. Morning of the race everything went as planned, eat breakfast, pack car and relax. Tara headed over in the car before me, I decided to ride over and use that for my warm up. I was excited to race because there were now 3 U23 Canadians in the mix so we had one another to feed off of! I had my race plan all set up in my head, conserve and have consistent power from start to finish. Then came my 8th spot call up. That’s when I decided it was time to take the lead and dance with the big boys. Being called up 8th at a world cup was big deal for me, had the red and white on my shoulders ready to giver. I looked down the front line and beside me were the Dutch and Italian National Champions. Then I looked farther and the field just got deeper. The whole front line was National Champions from all different countries…WOW…you may not know this but that’s a big deal...hahaha. I decided that I would forget my first game plan and use this 8th call up as a test. I would go as hard as I could and try my hardest to stay with the front group. Bang sounded the gun, I found myself sitting in the top 10 after the first corner and 20 step stair case, and the best part I was feeling good. I did everything I could to stay in contact with the lead group. It didn’t last long, I was breathing so hard I was struggling to find air…for the first time in my racing career I could not keep up with my breathing, that’s how hard I was going! As you probably suspect I started to feel the pain…I went backwards faster through the field then you can blink. I was pretty pumped about everything; I was able to stick with the best in the world for a lap. All I need now is 6 more laps! I ended up 32nd in the race, things fell apart after my huge first lap effort, it cost me in the end, but I got 1st for experience points!
Now I am back in Belgium training and enjoying the rainy weather of Tielte-winge!
11days!!!!

brussel sprouts in brussels

Now I was told by a wise person, "Kyle you must try the brussel sprouts in brussels to see if they are better!" Yeaop thats what I did, night before I leave to go to France I cooked me up some sprouts de brussels...sprouts, sprouts, sprouts in my belly yum, yum, yum!

they are better!!!!

La doucheeeeeeee

Douchesssss….yeah you heard me! Now at first you think who’s he douche but when really you should be thinking what is a Douche. Well it’s your lucky day because I am going to let you know. It’s an outdoor portable shower! I forget to mention this in my report I put up last night, I don’t know how it slipped my mind because it was probably the funniest thing that has happened to me on this trip! After my race I picked up my clean clothes and headed over to the douches. Tara forgot to mention to me that they were shared male/female showers. I jumped threw a red plastic curtain door in to the showering area, the only thing between me and the world. There was one other guy in there getting changed, so not a big deal. Anyways I was getting undressed trying to figure out what I was going to do with all my dirty clothes. At this point I am supporting the no clothes show and in walks two pretty attractive girls just talking away. Me as cool as I am is thinking um shit, I am in the girls shower? Then I was like there’s the other dude in here, we both couldn’t have made the same mistake. The girls are just chatting away while I am just standing there naked. At this point I am thinking alright this would probably be a good time to say hi, but then I thought that might come off a little creepy. Then I just figured they made a mistake and came in to the guy’s showers…and in my books that’s a great mistake. They just didn’t care…they picked up some gear which was either there’s or maybe a husbands or boyfriends and just continued on there day like nothing happened. All I know is that my naked white ass was hanging out for them to see. I wasn’t alone on this because the other guy was just chilling in the shower while the girls were there. I guess that’s how it is done in Europe! I hope the France showers are even better…

Ding, Ding

Today was an interesting day, I had a great feeling about the race, but was still feeling the tail end of the cold. The boat rocked both ways, mentally I was ready to rock, physically I was a little bit worried about the cold. Tara, Andrea (Shaun’s friend) and I jumped in the fun wagon and drove to the race venue. It was only about 1hr away, was not that bad. I was a little bit out of my head space when I arrived because I was having a hell of a time finding registration, the arrow did not point in the right direction, I found that out later! After a long search, I couldn’t sign in because my number wasn’t ready (look at picture). Yeah thats my name on the number! Once I settled and tackled the language barrier I settled in to a nice race mode. I got changed and started to check out a very sand course. It was an amazing course, lots of tricky sand pits…and super sketchy corners, yeah my cup of tea! I couldn’t find my groove right off the start but once I had a few times around and changed my tire pressure I could rail. At least I was going Kyle fast, but it wasn’t winner fast! Once I got back to the car I helped Mrs, Ross get ready for her race. As soon as she jumped on the trainer it just started to poor rain. It wouldn’t be racing in Belgium if you didn’t throw rain in to the mix. We did a frantic tire switch…it wasn’t that frantic but makes the situation seem intense. In the end we did a bad tire change and it ended up costing Tara, she took a spill and got a little mark on her knee. She ended up with a wicked ride crossing the line in 11th…Way to go! Now it was my turn to represent the fun wagon. Shaun and I did a warm up on the road and then did a few efforts. We both felt good, you may not know this, but we both are kind of a big deal…people know us! (we watched Anchorman!). I got a sweet call up…3rd row…yeah I was impressed! Not only did I get third row but fellow country man Greain and Shaun were on either side of me, watch out Belgium Canadian invasion! Back to the race…the start was hectic a whole pile of guys flying down a straight pavement section in to hard grass left then hard grass right…it had pile up written all over it, successfully the Canadians had some shake and bake up there sleeve and we made it threw! From this point on I can not really speak for Greg and Shaun’s race, but check out there Blogs at… http://crazyfast.squarespace.com/ http://sadamson.wordpress.com/. Me on the other hand had an amazing first lap, I moved up and had great pressure. I settled in to a great rhythm on the third lap I slowed down and 3 guys blazed past me. I was really worried about going to hard and pulling my cold in to my lungs. Then I remember: A) I was already going stupid hard…so keep going, B) I was in Belgium racing, so keep going and C) who cares, go harder… so that’s what I did and I ripped by the 3 guys. In the end I was super happy; it was a step up in my performance compared to my other races. In the end I place 31st, not to shabby! That was how my day unraveled!


Here are a few roads that I have been training on, Matt quote, "reminds me of Europe."



yeop thats a church in the middle of the road, and thats my bike!

Race #3

The warm up to a very wet, muddy and cold day!The Start to the day, look at me go!

Ouch, the stairs hurt alot!Tricky, but fun!

Is it over yet?

Crossssssinngggg the line, Brrrrrr, thank god thats done!

Racing In Europe

The most asked question that I have been getting is, how are you?, how are things? and hows racing in Europe? Well I was given this photo from my new photographer friend Joe Sales. I think it describes what life is like racing in europe! Ouch!

Good times

New years was celebrated fashionably late in our house. We all had races on Dec 31st and Jan 1st, so we all went out to the local watering hole to chug back a few on Jan 2nd. It was also Neil’s last night in town along with our american friends so we toasted to a fun trip. It was a fun night just to have a different atmosphere then cycling. We all dipped into different kind of beers and other drinks. The favorite was the red cherry beer, Kriek, very smooth. Shaun and I tried a shot that you sip. You couldn’t shoot it, it was just to strong.

I stopped at a gas station for a snack, and this is also for Matt and his old college roomate John. There was a wine and cheese bar. I found it funny, gas, coffee and some wine and cheese.