Rain and fit in Belium

"To prepare for a race, there is nothing better than a pheasant, some champagne, and a woman."
-Jaques Anquetil
I found that quote at the end of an old VeloNews. It brought happiness to my day. Apparently he used to spend many a night before Tour stages up late drinking and partying. And then win the next day. I'm pretty sure Bernard would beat us with a proverbial stick if we tried that. Plus my chances of winning a Tour de France stage this year are getting pretty slim. None of the correct teams seem to be returning my calls. I told them I was Sandy, and that I was kinda a big deal... Oh well. Back on topic.
Had my bike fit last night. And to sum things up, it was topsy turvey. Word courtesy of Mr. Scott Wenzel. Basically, we went to Franz's place, and settled into this little old school fit studio in the back of his garage. The man is old school to the bone. He owns like 6 generations of Eddy Merckx bikes, is about 60 and reminds me of a grouchy version of my grandfather (Dap). He is quite nice, other than being set in his ways, full of stories, and only speaks dutch. Luckily Ann was there to translate the important parts. Unfortunately I couldn't understand most of the stories, which sounded wicked cool judging by the names of the cyclists he was dropping. In fact, he had an appointment today with an Astana pro he was upset about as he could not change any parts on the dude's BMC without consulting Astana management first. Apparently the guy would get fined 10,000 Euros for being seen with non sponsor parts or changing stuff. Anyways, this office was small, but packed to the brim with every bike part and tool you could imagine. Stems of every length, angle and quality, bars, shoe fitting stuff, and drawers full of riders measurements. He showed me the bike fits of many pros who have very similar measurements to me. The man knows his fitting. After taking about 12,000 measurements of me and double checking them all, he calculated what my "perfect" frame and bike would look like numbers wise. As if I would be getting a custom bike. He then measured my stuff up, and proceded to tell me how everything was topsy turvey. Not his exact words, but my bike was changed pretty drastically. He then basically stripped my bike down, and rebuilt it with the correct measurements. The dude even modified my seatpost to be able to level my saddle better. It took him about 45 minutes just to get the seat set up just right. Meticulous was an understatement. New, shorter stem now, modified seatpost, lower bars, 2cm higher seat... The list goes on. He even changed the routing of my cables. Four hours of bike fit, 60 Euros. A deal and a half as normally that would be a 200 Euro job. He then mounted my cleats perfect with this crazy homemade jig (he has made jigs for everything) and got me on the bike and showed me why he did everything and how it would make me better. Pretty sweet. Got home at almost 11, happy. Oh, and he changed my pedals to Time, Bernard gave me some. He HATES Speedplay. Looking forward to riding today, though our recon ride has now been postponed until tomorrow due to what looks like an epic storm a brewing. Most likely caused by Tex looking at the sun this morning and commenting on it. Literally, 10 seconds later these clouds blew in. Better find out what I should do for a ride soon and do it before this rain starts.