Tommy Nankervis

Bont Shoes, and other things…

// September 1st, 2009 // A Day Down Under

Okily Dokily readers, I hope you have had time to read up on Mal Sawford and what he does for the Carnegie Caulfield Cycling Club! Now I have another blog I have been anxiously waiting to post on Missing Saddle; my laziness and ability to find other things to do than write a blog post have nothing to do with this, I was just trying to leave Mal’s extended profile up as my current post for as long as possible!

We have had a busy last few weeks with quite a bit of racing and recovering. The weather here has been great, and all those people who think Belgium does nothing but rain, well, today you are in luck – it started again, and will likely take us through our next couple of races!

Last weekend we did a ride for our team leader, Bert Roesems. The Bert Roesems Classic. Bert has been a top rider here in Belgium for a long, long time. He has raced on top teams, including Davitamon Lotto with all the Aussies; Robbie McEwen, Henk Vogels, Nick Gates, and Cadel Evans. During this time he develpoed a good Aussie slang about his perfect English!

Here is the team with Bert on the left, and his son in the front. I will endeavour to do a post on Bert in the coming weeks, to give a better account of his success on the pushy.

A few weeks ago Nicky did a derny criterium in Antwerpen, and the star of the show was the current World Champion, Alessandro Ballan! Here he is with Nico just before the start. It was great to see how these post-tour races go, and I am glad I was there to watch/mechanic for Nicky, even if I didn’t get to race…

The coolest thing though, of recent times for me, is that I have been hooked up with a new pair of shoes, BONT! These shoes are the best thing I have ever used on the bike I reckon. You can do all sorts of things to make you faster, and put out more power, but when the team usually restricts a number of these things to sponsored products, there are very few additions you can make. Luckily, I am able to wear these new shoes, and it is just ridiculous how stiff and light they are.
Here is the cool thing:

Heat mouldable!
You throw these bad-boys in the oven for a few minutes, and then put them on, and wait for them to cool. Next thing you know, you have a pair of customised cycling shoes! I am so exctied to go for every training ride now, and know that in races I have a little bit more power going straight through the pedals. Top these shoes off, or bottom them off(!), with some “pre-custom” SuperFeet Insoles, and you have the most perfect cycling shoe set-up available! This might sound like I am trying to just give a big plug to sponsors, or something like that, but I am genuine when I say this, and I really feel like I have the most perfect set-up now. It feels like I can now begin my cycling again; cycling “pre-Bont/SuperFeet”, and cycling “with Bont/SuperFeet”! I could go on and on about these things, but all I can really say is, if you get the chance to try it out, you have to see it for yourself!

One thing, I stacked and really made a mess of the new shoes, the very first day I raced in them! A bit of black texta and some craft-work, and they aren’t too bad though…

In other news, racing has been going well. I am definitely going strong, just in search of some big results, still! I hope to capitalise on the good form in the next month – there is no shortage of opportunities! Tomorrow we are doing a kermesse and racing up the famous “Geraardsbergen Mur”, made famous by its cobbles, and always being in the Tour of Flanders.

Hope everyone is going well.

Spiral staircases in medieval castles are running clockwise. This is because all knights used to be
right-handed. When the intruding army would climb the stairs they would not be able to use their right hand which was holding the sword because of the difficulties of climbing the stairs. Left-handed knights would have had no troubles, except left-handed people could never become knights because it was assumed that they were descendants of the devil.