Tommy Nankervis

Trip to Brugge

// May 29th, 2009 // 11 Comments » // A Day Down Under

Howdy readers! With the last post being a bit of a nothing post, I have had to get out and find a bunch of interesting things to do. I hope I still have a good number of readers, so if you do still read, be sure to leave a comment! There have been some new “comment writers”, so that is great, thankyou. Also, thanks (or “bedankt”, Dutch for “thanks”) to the others who regularly comment so as I know people still read this!

So Keally and I headed over to the amazing Belgian city of Brugge, or Bruges, or whichever language you speak. It is a stunning place, with amazing old buildings, miles and miles of canals, and cobbled streets everywhere. There is a nice big town square where everyone heads out to the restaurants and cafes, and the famous clock tower, the Belfry of Bruges.

I think the thing that makes Brugge so amazing and scenic, is that the city has done it’s best to preserve it’s historic feel, and all the renovations on old buildings and roads have been done to keep things traditional.
So being the lazy cyclist that I am, and avoiding any excessive walking, I thought it would be best if we hire out a tandem bicycle down this laneway:

It turned out to be a great idea, as we were able to do about three different 90 minute walks, in less than an hour. Thanks to my brother Michael, and his girlfriend Katie for the tourist guide book, as it worked really well. Keally went on the back, reading out the directions, sights, and using the map, while I was up front, steering, and in charge of the photography as we went barrelling along! It was a great way to get around, and it is a very cyclist friendly city. The bike itself was completely pathetic, hardly even working, and Keally’s seat was very broken, but none-the-less, it was a fun and interesting way to make to most of our time! Here is a picture of us in front of the Belfry of Bruges, on the tandem.

This photo is cool, with one of the many canals in the background, because it looks as though we are riding on a boat along the water. We aren’t though, we are riding the tandem!

This is a typical Brugge scene. Everywhere you look along the canals, there are sights like this.

I love all of the old buildings packed together in Belgium, right up against the footpath, and getting as close to the water of the rivers and canals as possible. Everything is so old, and the streets are still paved with cobbles rather than with asphalt.

Here is the big tower in the heart of Bruges, the Belfry of Bruges. For anyone who has seen the movie, In Bruges, with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, this is where the guy falls from the top of the tower, down into the square. If you haven’t seen the movie, it is quite good, and strangely funny!

Here we are after the long walk up the steep, steep stair-case, which you could also maybe even describe as somewhat of a ladder! It is so steep and old and twisty, and almost scary to think how they were able to build such an amazing building so many centuries ago…

… and here is the view from the top of the tower, looking down into the sqaure, with all the cafes and restaurants . This is the view straight down at the same things as in the first photo of this post, up the top. It is amazingly high!

We had a great trip over to Bruges, and were really happy to see the place that so many people speak of when referring to the tourist side of Belgium. I would highly recommend a visit there for anyone visiting Europe.

We also had a HUGE celebration for Keally’s brithday on Friday. It would surely have been the biggest birthday celebration she has had, that’s for sure! She specially chose this Winnie the Pooh cake, and the candles, but we didn’t have a lighter to light the candles, and the shops were shut, so we just had to sing with no lit candles! Happy Birthday anyway!

The Bruges canals are now exclusively used for tourist boats. There are five families that are allowed to organise tourist excursions by open boats on the canals. Each family has 4 boats.

Howdy!

// May 14th, 2009 // 5 Comments » // A Day Down Under

Howdy readers!

Things have been cruising along here, and Keally, my beautiful fiancee has now arrived in Belgium. She came just in time to be my nurse really, so I am very lucky! I wasn’t much fun for the first few days she arrived, hobbling around like an old man, but I am just about fully healed up, and still not much fun!

Keally was able to experience some of the Belgian roads here the other day when she took me and my team mates, Mitch and Tom, for a session behind the scooter. Mitch brought the scooter over in the morning, after bringing his bike over the night before. He looked a sight, so I can only imagine what the other drivers on the road thought of him:

The scooter is a lot bigger than the one we have back in the US, but Keally did a great job.

We did a pro kermesse yesterday, and I am told these things happen on weekdays, and we will be doing more and more of them as we head into Summer. I am also told kermesse means “carnival”, and therefore, each town that throws a kermesse, really knows how to do a great job of it. It is amazing how many people turn up to watch the races, and it makes me wonder how they get all the time off work, especially when you see the same familiar faces at all of the races! There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of spectators at every race, rain or shine, and there is music going, everyone drinking and partying, it is just brilliant how much the Belgians get into the cycling!

Keally took this really cool photo of the finish, the race was a 1-2 win for the AN Post-Sean Kelly team. I would love to be able to win one of these races this year.

In other news, Wade is home from hospital. The other day he just caught the train home, unannounced, and waltzed on into the team house. It was a bit of a surprise, but great to see that he has made such a rapid recovery, and is well enough to return home. He is going to take a trip back to the US and fully recover, before coming back to Belgium. Check out Mitch’s blog here, and you can see a photo of Wade.

I must also give a plug to the best cycling power meter company going around, SRM. SRM don’t only make the best, most reliable power measuring system, but they have the best customer support too. I smashed the head unit of my SRM less than two weeks ago, and they did everything they could to help me out and make sure I was sorted out as soon as possible. Thanks again SRM in the USA!

The Chinese invented the wheelbarrow.

It is Keally’s birthday next week, so if anyone has any good birthday ideas, please let me know!

Form Wreckers

// May 8th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // A Day Down Under

Hey there readers. I hope you are still reading my Missing Saddle page, and enjoying the new look. I must give a huge thanks to Curtis, the Missing Saddle front man, who had to re-do the whole site after it had been hacked, and still was able to get my new look page up and running. I am also working on updating my other pages in the coming days, so there should be a new list of links, new photos on the photos page, and also might update my biography page too. Pretty exciting stuff going on over here!

The not-so-exciting stuff invloved a pretty high-speed crash last Friday. Luckily, or unluckily, my SRM computer, which broke in the crash, was able to tell me my last recorded speed; 55.5km/h!

So do you see these things below?:

Well in the race on Friday, in the Mei Prijs – Ereprijs Victor De Bruyne (or Hoboken) race, I didn’t see them. Not these exact ones, but the ones that were on the course in the race. They have them in every race we do, and we refer to them as “form-f—ers” or “form-wreckers”, for obvious reasons! The thing is, in every race, and this one for the most part too, there is a person standing there in a fluro jacket, waving a fluro flag, blowing constantly into a whistle. For some reason, the one that I hit had no-one there, and I was just following the wheels in the bunch, and the other guys must have seen it and swerved, and I went straight into it, no brakes, no warning, just bang.
Most crashes you know what is about to happen, but this one got me by surprise. There were four in a row, and I either landed on the fourth one, or whatever, I don’t know, but a few other riders landed on top of me. One of them was my team mate and room mate, Mitch. He ended up worse off than me, having to go to hospital with a dislocated or separated shoulder, and get stitches in the elbow.
I smashed my hlemet to bits, and must have landed on the back of my head, and shoulders.


I had a splitting headache for the next two days, so I am very glad I was wearing such a good helmet!

Here are a few other styles of “form-wreckers”. They are everywhere, and if you hit them, they take all of your form away. I think I have it back already, as my back is starting to feel better, where Mitch “T-boned” me, right in the asthma puffer! I am still sore, with skin off, but was lucky enough to walk away, and I was able to race the next day too. Very lucky really!
Check out the various types:

As you can see, mostly they just appear in the road where we ride/race.


These ones are hard to see too, as they sit so low, and there so many of this type that you cant expect to have a person stading at all of these to warn the riders.

In other news, our team mate Wade Wolfenbarger had a serious crash at Ronde van Overijssel in The Netherlands on Saturday. He hit the ground head first, and was airlifted out and put in an induced coma. The good news is he is ok now, and while he has a fractured cheek-bone, he is back in a Belgian hospital, and we were able to visit him last night. He is in good spirits, and hopefully will be out of hospital shortly.

So there is a bit of a crash update. Everything is going well here, and I will try and get another update out shortly. The Giro d’Italia starts tomorrow, so best of luck to all the riders, particularly my friends racing on Cervelo Test team; Jezza Hunt, Teddy King, and Simon Gerrans. I hope these guys do some serious arse kicking all week/month!

Tasmania has the cleanest air in the inhabited world.