Belgian Training: Bicycle Kicks

OK, I have to take back what I said in a couple of earlier posts.

In them, I noted an interesting paradox:  The countries that have dominated the worlds of cycling and football (what Americans call soccer) are roughly the same.  Yet, even within those countries, the ball and the wheel almost never cross paths, so to speak.  Almost no one from one sport can be found in the other.


But it seems that in Brazil, the Belgian team that will face off against the Americans tomorrow has made cycling part of their training regimen:

Axel Witsel and Laurent Ciman riding in Sao Paolo

USA Today reporter Nick Schwartz describes their, and their teammates', rides as "casual".  It's hard to imagine a bunch of world-class athletes on their sport's greatest stage being "casual" about anything!





I mean, look at Axel Witsel in this shot.  He's ready to take on the world!


Here, Dries Mertens gives new meaning to the term "bicycle kick".  He seems to be giving a clinic to his teammate and Red Devils' star Eden Hazard:





Somehow it makes sense that these players would come from the same country that gave us Eddy Mercx.

Cycling Under The Rainbow

Today the Pride March makes its way down Manhattan's Fifth Avenue to Washington Square Park. From there, marchers will turn on to Christopher Street and pass the Stonewall Inn.  On this date forty-five years ago, patrons fought police officers who tried to raid the bar.  This clash, first labelled as the Stonewall Riot and later the Stonewall Rebellion, is usually cited as the beginning of the modern LGBT equality movement.

As always, there will be some bicycles in the procession.  Of course, nobody will ride very fast, and some of the bikes as well as cyclists will no doubt serve mainly as props for signs or floats.

I admire the spirit of these marchers in Vietnam, who are pushing for marriage equality in one of Asia's most repressive regimes:

We all know that such struggles are important.  But we can't forget that sometimes the battle is won and lost with, and on, accessories:

When I'm Feeling Proud Of Myself...

One of these days, I'm going to post some photos from the bike tours I've taken and write some entertaining but factual(!) stories to go with them.  I have to go through boxes full of images, find the ones that might be meaningful or at least interesting to you or any other reader, and have them scanned.

But for now I'll tell you that when I was pedaling alone in a foreign country (or simply away from home), carrying what I needed , I had moments of pure exhiliaration, when I felt proud of what I was doing yet humbled by the immensity of the world that surrounded me.  

There were also moments, however, when I almost felt silly, like the time I rode up the Col du Portillon in the Pyrenees.  I ascended on the French side and, nearing the highest part--the border between France and Spain--I was thinking that Hannibal had nothing on me. But I saw two creatures who did:  a pair of brown mountain goats, watching me from the side of the road.  I could almost swear that I heard them chuckling to themselves.  "You think you're such a great mountain climber.  We do this every day!"

And whenever I feel confident in myself for carrying everything I need on my bicycle, I should remember that there are people all over the world who haul far more, every day:

I must say, though, that the man makes almost as much of a fashion statement as the woman does!