"It's Raining Again"......

I'm tough enough to hike and ride in the rain for days on end, if it is a means to an end.....that is, if it is the only thing to do to arrive at my destination.

But I am also whimp enough to stay indoors and get some exercises and alternative weighttraining done at home, when IT JUST DOESN'T STOP RAINING.

Last wednesday was my first day of student teaching/instructing at the BMX club here in Draguignan. Well, all I did was observe and ask questions and get to know the people at and of the club. It was long afternoon, because the track was wet and muddy and the kids complained it was too hard. Apart from that the sky was grey and heavy and in an area where you're used to the sun, this kind of weather presses heavy on the mind. Everybody was just a bit grumpy....

But hey.....I'm used to the grey skies and I did not pay it all that much attentions, I just watched these kids to see what sort of teaching they could use......the eye of the master, sort of speaking, to prepare myself for the months to come. The track here at Draguignan is tough; big tables, doubles and a line of whoops into the finish line. Quite attractive though and I would love to see Luca handle it and give a bit of a demonstration to these kids. I wonder what he'd say about it. Let's wait and see what the next months have in store for me. Looking forward to it.

Mont Ventoux - Mountainbike Paradise

What else does a person need, when a week of BMX en Mountainbike fun turns out to also be an investment in the future. What else do I need but a beautifull place to stay close the Carpentras at the foot of the Mont Ventoux, with good company and some excellent instruction to improve my skills.


Fair enough, it was cold, bitterly cold because of the wind. I think that the windchill added up to about minus 10 C. in the evening and we were not amused. Especially when the fuel heaters stopped working in the middle of the night only to wake up to a frostbitten landscape.


But heck, we were enjoying ourselves!! We had the apartment to ourselves, there was a friend to guide and teach us some of the difficult BMX-techniques and we had a trainer who joined us for a mountainbike trip.


It was only a short trip, but....the learning curve was all the bigger and all the more rewarding, because I went down a short and very steep track, thanks to some coaching. I was over the moon; never had I done a thing like this before. One simple remark (and of course two guys who were freezing their bunns off, so they just wanted me to get the heck down and trust the bike and myself) and it went smooth like a hot knife through butter. Just like that. The second one was even better, over a small bridge of sand and earth, to turn down through yellow and ocre sand and to end up under that same ocre bridge, in an old ocre and sand pit and mine. There in the south of France; one of those spots you see in bike-videos, where you want to go but can't find.......well I was there.





And it was fantastic.




Take a look, go have fun there and enjoy!
http://www.ventouxaventure.com/

Sinterklaas en pepernoten in Carpentras

Ik verheug me op Sinterklaas.
Vorig jaar heb ik geen pepernoot gegeten, dus nu wil ik het overdoen, omdat ik in Nederland ben.
Daarna, op 8 december, vlieg ik weer op Nice en daarna wordt ik op 10 december in Carpentras verwacht. Dat is ongeveer 2,5 uur rijden van mijn huisje aan de Cote, maar nog steeds binnen de regio. Mooi is het daar.

Goed; een aantal collega's / klasgenoten en ik gaar een week trainen op het onder deel BMX. Je weet wel, die kleine fietsjes, zonder rem en waar je alleen maar staand op kunt fietsen. Nu ben ik zelf ook niet zo groot gelukkig. We gaan dat trainen omdat we tijdens het examen een 'dubbele' moeten springen. Op 30 meter van de start ligt een heuveltje op een BMX baan en dat is nog wel te doen, maar vaak ligt er op 50 meter dan een dubbele heuvel, die twee keer zo hoog en twee keer zo breed is. Daar moet ik overheen kunnen springen en gelukkig is dat voor een aantal collega's net zo eng en technisch als voor mij.

Een week lang BMX'en dus, scherend over heuveltjes, hangend in de bochten, sprintend over de laatste lijn. Tussen door ook nog oefenen in het kaart lezen, orienteren en de juiste punten afstempelen, want dat wordt ook op het examen verwacht. Dan moeten we in 1 uur, 3 punten gestempeld hebben....maar wel de juiste. Alles is een kwestie van oefenen en het is erg prettig om dat in december nog te kunnen doen. Als het zonnetje een beetje waterig is, maar wel zacht, 's avonds een glaasje wijn en sterke verhalen over de dag vertellen en pepernoten in plaats van chips. Ik heb er zin in.