Below is a note from Matt Werrell on his Belgian adventures.

28 May 2009 

Hello, finally I have my computer, not sure if you heard the story but its long and complicated and just glad to have it and be back in contact with everyone. Well so far Belgium is interesting, very different but I'm starting to really like it, especially in the last week. The first week I was a bit lost. Just with not having anything that you're familiar with like food, the weather, day light (at the moment it gets dark at like 10.30 and light around 4 in the morning) and of course the racing is nothing like Australia. At the moment I'm racing about 3 times a week, the races are Kirmeses (anywhere from 4km to 10km loops normaly through a town) the races are all about 120km long and have 100 to 150 riders in each race. That's a lot of riders when the road can only be 2 metres wide at times. It can get quite hairy.

The crowds are huge too, all the races start at like 3 in the afternoon so everyone in the town usually finishes up work and will watch the bike race, all the pubs and bars along the track are packed. The Belgiums love their racing. At some of the racers you can even put a bet on a rider for the win and take some money. My results have been coming along pretty well. I have done about ten races and seem to improve with everyone I do. I have managed to even bag a top ten. That was a good day. I got the break away with about 30km to go and attacked in the last lap to have myself a ten second gap as I went through the start/finish line with that bell ringing and hundreds of Belgiums screaming. Woohoo. I think this guy must have had some money on me too because as I hit the first corner into that last lap, he was going crazy, yelling 'go go go' and then obviously as I got caught with about 2km to go and rolled through about ninth he said something to me that I don't think was very nice. He said it in Dutch so I don't now what he said, but I'm sure it wasn't good. I would have been paying a lot too as you could imagine with no results to my name yet (lol). Oh well.

The house I am living in is awsome. The guy that runs it is american and his wife is Canadian. They have both been living here for about 3 years now and are very helpful and full of advice, which is good because I have no idea. He also happens to be an ex-pro too so he knows a lot of people. He introduces me to as many people as he can, but as he says to me 'Now it's just up to you to get your front wheel across that line first and then things will happen from there'. Soo true. The other guys in the house are really cool. There is 4 Canadians and one other aussie and it makes up for a good group and some fun times. Getting lost and getting home at all hours of the night is a regular occurrence (lol). I could talk for hours about our adventures just in the last 3 weeks. Strong relationships are formed quickly in this sort of enviroment. Anyway its midnight here and I'm racing tomorrow, so i'll head to bed and get some rest. I'm going for the early break tomorrow, straight from the gun.

Matt Werrell