Day 19 - Day in Antwerp

Written by Stephen Hall with Brett Schnitzerling & Glenn Harris

Tim arrived late last night and we'd promised him a coffee ride leaving at 8.30am. We were still fast asleep by then but he eventually got us out of bed and on the bike by 10. The Rabobank van was parked outside the apartment packed with bidons, t-shirts, hats and other cycling paraphernalia. We admired the equipment before we set off for a coffee in Geel. Tim has lived in Belgium for most of his life so he took us a more scenic route than the way we had been going. We zigzagged through beautiful streets and along the canal on a lovely autumn morning. As we were riding Tim called out to inform me that my brake pad was rubbing on my wheel. We pulled over and noticed the rear break caliper was holding on by a single thread. Racing over the cobbles yesterday had given my bike a good hammering and loosened practically everything. Glenn, convinced he'd found 'the perfect position' had stopped bringing allen keys with him since last Thursday so I had to ride to the bike shop with the added resistance. Tim tightened the caliper in two minutes at Van Eykes and we rode across the road to have a coffee and cecemel. Not having the break pads rubbing helped but I was still feeling sluggish and decided to pull the pin on this afternoon's Criterium. We talked bikes and Tim shared some 'on tour' stories while we sat at the coffee shop.

Instead of driving 120km away to Hoeilaart for the crit we decided to head into Antwerp for a look around and some lunch. When we arrived home we all showered and changed and on the road by 1pm. An hour or so later of driving (I was asleep) we were walking down the beautiful streets of Antwerp. Both sides of the cobble stone road were lined with expensive clothing outlets and restaurants. We were pretty hungry so we power-walked for 15 minutes to a nice outdoor restaurant. I'm not sure what we ordered (the menu was in Dutch) but it was magnificent and we were all silent while we enjoyed it. Next door to the restaurant was a modern lifestyle store much like Ikea which we wandered around in for awhile. We continued walking the streets stopping for pastry and coffee as we went. The sun started to go down so we made our way back to the car for the drive home.

Just before we got back to the apartment we stopped at the only supermarket still open and grabbed some extra veges for dinner. Brett whipped up a carbon copy of last night's dinner and we all thoroughly enjoyed it the second time around. Tomorrow is our last race here in Belgium which is set to be explosive with both Glenn and I trying to grasp the elusive win in Nieuwerkerken. The race kicks off at 3pm hopefully we can keep the crocodiles (cramping) at bay long enough for Arbitrage Wormall to cross the line with their hands in the air.