Technical Difficulties

Sunday 30 April 2017

Waking up this morning after our third night in Antwerpen, I finally began feeling human again and had the itch to Dani for a spin. I had planned for my first race to be tomorrow in Meigem. A 1.12B race, which I know is going to rip my legs off after more than a week off the bike. I think it must have been all the Tour Durban activities popping up in my Strava feed which pushed the urge to race over the edge and I began making arrangements.

True enough, a small race in Zingem (20km outside of Gent – where I had left my wheels earlier in the week), was on in the afternoon. Not quite 1.12B level, but by all accounts the level of competition is tough across the board in Flanders. At 66km in length, this race would be presumably be hard from the gun, and the aim was to hopefully hang on for an hour. Traveling may or may not have added some kilograms to the waistline.

To-date, Lu has been handling all the public transport arrangements. She is a master of the art of traveling planning and I have been more than happy to sit back, relax and just magically end up at the next location. She generally takes payment in back scratches so everybody wins (mostly me though). That being said, Lu had no interest in traveling around today, so I would have to face the perils of the public transport on my own. This meant hauling a few pieces of luggage around for my commute to Gent, the most important of which was the 28kg bikebag. Yes, I still had to build the bike back up in Gent before riding to the start line in Zingem. A little bit of urgency adds to the adventure.

Lu kicked me out the house, luggage in tow and I made my way for the tram. Getting the luggage onto the tram and off again was my biggest worry on the walk. The tram is compact and the luggage takes up a lot of space and would have to be placed at an awkward angle or three to make it work. True enough, as the tram pulls up and I begin the painful process of being that foreigner trying to squeeze oversized bags onto the tram whilst Flemmings cast their judgmental eye at the guy obviously sticking out. Except only part of the above is true. I was the awkward foreigner struggling to get the luggage on-board, but there were no judgmental, awkward or intimidating stares. Instead, three people sprang to my aid and assisted me getting everything sorted before the tram pulled away. ‘Dank je!’ was all that I could muster in response to the kind faces that helped. But I get the feeling my face told them all they needed to know about my gratitude. Not the first time I have experienced the warmth of the people here and I must admit, it’s definitely something I could get used to. So much for the Introverted Belgians I hear so much about.

There is an app for everything these days. From online bank to an on-demand taxi service. Silly games to kill time and custom alarm clocks (only High would want something like this). There is also an app for booking a train ticket and I planned to use this to get from Antwerpen Centraal to Gent Saint Peters. Except, technical difficulties. Already aboard the train, trying to book a ticket with the app. Repeatedly attempts. 10 minutes till the train departs and each time a screen prompt reads “Technical difficulties”. Drats. That technical difficulty means I am delayed 30min in reaching Gent and that little bit of urgency I mentioned earlier is starting to mutate into something larger. Everyone likes sitting next to that sweaty ham-beast on the train right? I was subsequently able to purchase a return ticket to Antwerpen using more traditional methods. The first time modern technology has failed me on this trip so far.

More than an hour later and I reached Gent and before too long I am at our future apartment (we move in tomorrow, May 1^st) trying to piece together a working bicycle. Not before I got stuck in the apartment building’s elevator. Technical difficulties. Our new neighbour is apparently accustomed to the elevator misbehaving and promptly reset the power and I was free! I scurried to complete putting bicycle parts back together in hopefully something that would resemble a bicycle.

Worst case scenario; take too long and miss the race.

Second worst case scenario; the bike has been put together in a sloppy manner and something comes loose at 45km/h.

Obviously, I opted to rush the process and was out the door with a mere 50min left until registration for the race were to close. Google Maps (my new best friend) was kind enough to guide me. Under normal circumstances, the 20km route in 50min would not have posed an issue, but having never been to Zingem, I was inspecting Google Maps periodically to confirm I was doing this whole commute thing correctly (Flemish roads are lovely by the way). With 2km left, I had given up looking at the clock, as this arbitrary numerical representation was making me anxious. I requested guidance from Google Maps one last time and much to my disbelief, Google Maps was not receiving an accurate GPS signal (my new best friend). Technical difficulties. With the seconds ticking down, I let my gut decide the route and 2km later I had arrived at Café ‘t Paradijs for the registration, which inconveniently had closed 5 minutes prior to my arrival. Once the disappointment had passed I looked around and was just happy to watch some bike racing before enjoying the tail wind back to Gent.

Although today wasn’t my first race in Flanders, it was my first bike ride and that is something just as special to me. Tomorrow is the race in Meigem. Hopefully I can get my ducks in a row for that. At least I was right about the misadventures.

#Flandrien

P.S Garmin also spazzed out a little. Identify the theme.