The Tour de France comes to Belgium

Got up at my normal hour of 7 today, which seems earlier lately with the lack of Chris as I now no longer have much company for my breakfast. No problem, I also therefore have full run of the kitchen without having to share and a few moments of peace to myself. Unfortunately, I ran out of time to get to the grocery store as our Tour departure got pushed up to noon to be able to get there and find good spots in the feed zone. Talked with Bernard, he feels that my knee movement (anyone who has ridden with me has seen my knee bobbing around side to side) is probably just due to a muscle memory thing. So for the next while, I will be doing 30 minute rides on the rollers in front of a mirror to try and retrain my muscles to go straight up and down. So today was my first ever ride on rollers. Took me a few minutes of riding with one hand on the wall to hold me up, but by the end of the hour (I happened to have a 1 hour pre-race ride on schedule) I was even able to drink while riding. Not bad, time seems to at least pass much faster than on the trainer. After a quick lunch, we were off to the feed zone of the Tour de France. Parked, and rode over to the feed zone and settled ourselves into nice spots. Grabbed a bunch of random free stuff from the massive parade/caravan that precedes the actual race. While waiting for the race, many team cars began to appear and begin filling musettes and bottles around us. Luckily for us, the Predictor-Lotto car parked itself right next to us, so we managed to scout out what the pros eat. For those interested, most bags seem to have: some sandwiches, rice cakes, little pastries, gels, coke, 2 bottles. Not all bags have the same stuff, and different teams do it a little differently, but all have the same idea. A small break of 3 riders came through first, and then the peloton came flying through led by team CSC trying to protect their yellow jersey. You really don't see much of the race itself, but I did manage to score a Confidis mussette bag thrown by one of their riders. Sweet. Headed back home, little dinner, and now getting ready for bed. My body always seems extra tired on these easy pre-race days. But so far, my legs have felt good when it mattered. So no worries, just keep my same schedule going and get plenty of rest. Next, a large portion of the team is racing a local Kermis race tomorrow in Oostkamp. Which is only a 10 minute ride from the house. Nice to be able to just roll over to the start. Late start though, 6pm. Going to be a weird eating schedule tomorrow. I'm off to bed...