So first Vantornout (the kid I LOVED and pegged last year as making his mark this year) starts flapping his lips on how it woudl have been an insult if Page won Worlds last year and now THIS! The Belgians are conspiring against us even though we saved their asses in the Ardennes in '44. Ingrates.

Thanks Dave for forwarding this incredibly important WSJ article.
Trappist Command:
Thou Shalt Not Buy Too Much of Our Beer

Monks at St. Sixtus Battle
Resellers of Prized Brew;
Brother Joris Plays Hardball

By JOHN W. MILLER
November 29, 2007; Page A1

WESTVLETEREN, Belgium -- The Trappist monks at St. Sixtus monastery have taken vows against riches, sex and eating red meat. They speak only when necessary. But you can call them on their beer phone.

Monks have been brewing Westvleteren beer at this remote spot near the French border since 1839. Their brew, offered in strengths up to 10.2% alcohol by volume, is among the most highly prized in the world. In bars from Brussels to Boston, and online, it sells for more than $15 for an 11-ounce bottle -- 10 times what the monks ask -- if you can get it.

For the 26 monks at St. Sixtus, however, success has brought a spiritual hangover as they fight to keep an insatiable market in tune with their life of contemplation.

The monks are doing their best to resist getting bigger. They don't advertise and don't put labels on their bottles. They haven't increased production since 1946. They sell only from their front gate. You have to make an appointment and there's a limit: two, 24-bottle cases a month. Because scarcity has created a high-priced gray market online, the monks search the net for resellers and try to get them to stop.

"We sell beer to live, and not vice versa," says Brother Joris, the white-robed brewery director. Beer lovers, however, seem to live for Westvleteren.

When Jill Nachtman, an American living in Zurich, wanted a taste recently, she called the hot line everybody calls the beer phone. After an hour of busy signals, she finally got through and booked a time. She drove 16 hours to pick up her beer. "If you factor in gas, hotel -- and the beer -- I spent $20 a bottle," she says.

Until the monks installed a new switchboard and set up a system for appointments two years ago, the local phone network would sometimes crash under the weight of calls for Westvleteren. Cars lined up for miles along the flat one-lane country road that leads to the red brick monastery, as people waited to pick up their beer.

"This beer is addictive, like chocolate," said Luc Lannoo, an unemployed, 36-year-old Belgian from Ghent, about an hour away, as he loaded two cases of Westvleteren into his car at the St. Sixtus gate one morning. "I have to come every month."

Two American Web sites, Rate Beer and Beer Advocate, rank the strongest of Westvleteren's three products, a dark creamy beer known as "the 12," best in the world, ahead of beers including Sweden's Närke Kaggen Stormaktsporter and Minnesota's Surly Darkness. "No question, it is the holy grail of beers," says Remi Johnson, manager of the Publick House, a Boston bar that has Westvleteren on its menu but rarely in stock.

Some beer lovers say the excitement over Westvleteren is hype born of scarcity. "It's a very good beer," says Jef van den Steen, a brewer and author of a book on Trappist monks and their beer published in French and Dutch. "But it reminds me of the movie star you want to sleep with because she's inaccessible, even if your wife looks just as good."

Thanks to the beer phone, there are no more lines of cars outside the monastery now. But production remains just 60,000 cases per year, while demand is as high as ever. Westvleteren has become almost impossible to find, even in the specialist beer bars of Brussels and local joints around the monastery.

"I keep on asking for beer," says Christophe Colpaert, manager of "Café De Sportsfriend," a bar down the road from the monks. "They barely want to talk to me." On a recent day, a recorded message on the beer phone said St. Sixtus wasn't currently making appointments; the monks were fresh out of beer.

Increasing production is not an option, according to the 47-year-old Brother Joris, who says he abandoned a stressful career in Brussels for St. Sixtus 14 years ago. "It would interfere with our job of being a monk," he says.

Belgian monasteries like St. Sixtus started making beer in the aftermath of the French Revolution, which ended in 1799. The revolt's anti-Catholic purge had destroyed churches and abbeys in France and Belgium. The monks needed cash to rebuild, and beer was lucrative.

Trappist is a nickname for the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, who set up their own order in La Trappe, France, in the 1660s because they thought Cistercian monasteries were becoming too lax. The monks at St. Sixtus sleep in a dormitory and stay silent in the cloisters, though they speak if they need to. Today, though, Trappists are increasingly famous for making good beer.

Seven monasteries (six are Belgian, one, La Trappe, is Dutch) are allowed to label their beer as Trappist. In 1996, they set up an alliance to protect their brand. They retain lawyers in Washington and Brussels ready to sue brewers who try use the word Trappist. Every few months, Brother Joris puts on street clothes and takes the train to Brussels to meet with fellow monks to share sales and business data, and plot strategy.

The monks know their beer has become big business. That's fine with the brothers at Scourmont, the monastery in southern Belgium that makes the Chimay brand found in stores and bars in Europe and the U.S. They've endorsed advertising and exports, and have sales exceeding $50 million a year. They say the jobs they create locally make the business worthy. Other monasteries, which brew names familiar to beer lovers such as Orval, Westmalle and Rochefort, also are happy their businesses are growing to meet demand.

Not so at St. Sixtus. Brother Joris and his fellow monks brew only a few days a month, using a recipe they've kept to themselves for around 170 years.

Two monks handle the brewing. After morning prayer, they mix hot water with malt. They add hops and sugar at noon. After boiling, the mix, sufficient to fill roughly 21,000 bottles, is fermented for up to seven days in a sterilized room. From there the beer is pumped to closed tanks in the basement where it rests for between five weeks and three months. Finally, it is bottled and moved along a conveyor belt into waiting cases. Monks at St. Sixtus used to brew by hand, but nothing in the rules of the order discourages technology, so they've plowed profits into productivity-enhancing equipment. St. Sixtus built its current brewhouse in 1989 with expert advice from the company then known as Artois Breweries.

In the 1980s, the monks even debated whether they should continue making something from which people can get drunk. "There is no dishonor in brewing beer for a living. We are monks of the West: moderation is a key word in our asceticism," says Brother Joris in a separate, email interview. "We decided to stick to our traditional skills instead of breeding rabbits."

The result is a brew with a slightly sweet, heavily alcoholic, fruity aftertaste.

One day recently, the wiry, sandy-haired Brother Joris returned to his office in the monastery after evening prayers. He flipped on his computer and went online to hunt for resellers and ask them to desist. "Most of the time, they agree to withdraw their offer," he says. Last year, St. Sixtus filed a complaint with the government against two companies that refused -- BelgianFood.com, a Web site that sells beer, cheese, chocolate and other niche products, and Beermania, a Brussels beer shop that also sells online. Both offer Westvleteren at around $18 a bottle.

"I'm not making a lot of money and I pay my taxes," says BelgianFood.com owner Bruno Dourcy. "You can only buy two cases at once, you know." Mr. Dourcy makes monthly two-hour car trips from his home in eastern Belgium.

"Seek the Kingdom of God first, and all these things will be given to you," counters Brother Joris, quoting from the Bible, adding that it refers only to things you really need. "So if you can't have it, possibly you do not really need it."

I hope no one shows up with their Glocks this weekend as the West Belgians are trading shots with the New Belgians. Classic old school gansta' style rivalries being built on the Cross Crusade forum right before the USGP's make their way to Portland this coming weekend.

More training today with za PowerSnap to see where the flock I am. Felt unbelievable yesterday like I am building which is great. Vee shall see what comes of it this weekend and next but ultimately I just want to be respectable in January. I've modified my goals for this season so the head is on right these days. Racing between CO States and Belgium in January will be non existent unless I make my way to CA for some Peak Season stuff. I have to be in SF late December so this may work out.

'Cross on.

November 28th, my faithful M & C readers, this blog celebrates its one year anniversary. Man, what the _ _ _ _ happened to the year!? Where has it gone?!?! I was checking in on Radio Freddy's a few days ago and noticed his beautiful site's one year anniversary which reminded me to look back in the annals for that very first post. Holy crappola! November 28th 2006!

What M & C is, is nothing more that an electronic scratchpad I wanted to start as a personal journal. That's what blogs are, right? So I made it into sort of a day to day thing documenting my experiences on quasi daily basis of what being a husband, daddy, worker and bike racer is about from the balance perspective....with the intent that come hell or high water, I would get my ass to Belgium...going to church so to speak...to experience what 'cross really is.....or maybe I know what it is and want to know from where it came. Whatever the case, more often than not, it was a place to digitally scream to something. Unfortunately you are all the victims of my rants and absolute psychoticness.

But, crazy psycho episodic rants aside, EVERY single good thing in my life from the time I was 5 years old derived from bikes, cross included and hopefully this Belgium goal a continuing extension of it. Literally, everything is linked together through bikes for the last 30+ years in this sort of beautiful unfolding tale that I am also enamored with when I reflect on it:

1. Learn how to ride a bike at Ted Stoica's 4th birthday party, 1975
   
2. Get my own bike in kindergarten that year and begin my obsession.
   
3. Create a bike gang of 5-8 year olds. We are the Thunderbirds.
   
4. Start dirt jumping with the T-birds Evil Kneivel style in elementary school
5. Learn to race BMX (decently) and ride ramps (badly) in middle school in the early 80's and gt my first racing license (an NBL license if you remember that!). Eddie Fiola is my hero.
   
6. Learn dad gets job transfer summer before I start high school in mid 80's. Parents bribe me with a Shogun racing 10 speed because this guy Greg Lemond is doing things over there in Europe and "10 speed bike racing" is getting cool.
   
7. The Shogun gathers dust while I revert back to my GT Pro Performer and start riding around the streets of NJ and BMX again becomes a proxy for meeting new peeps
8. Race more, jump more meet absolutely CORE people.
   
9. Go to college in the late 80's and learn about this thing called 'mountain biking'. I learn its a big BMX bike.
   
10. Drink incredible amounts of Piels and Gennesee Light and get fat.
11. Get inspired by Chris by senior year to go and ride ride ride
12. Graduate and flounder and move to Cape Cod, get my own MTB and ride every day. No shirt, no helmet, Hi-Tech hiking boots. I get tan and get back to some fitness.
    
13. Finally get embarrassed enough that I need to get a job, move back from the Cape and find one in NYC. I slave all week and blow out the weekends up and down the East Coast racing MTB's
14. Grow the obsession. Start buying magazines with pretty pictures of radsters in CA riding insane MTB's reading them cover to cover on the subway to and from work and.
15. Start using this thing called the internet in the mid 90's and find this bike guy in CA called "Rock Lobster" and get info on his bikes.
    
16. Get obsessed with Rock Lobster and Bontrager bikes and decide California is the place I ought to be so I loaded up the truck and I move to Beverly...er ah...SF
17. Move to SF, buy a Rock Lobster (actually many...) and find Mecca in Marin and Santa Cruz and meet a group of people who are literally family now...with no less than THREE marriages spawned by our group meeting an connecting
18. Then meet my beautiful (now) wife. We ride into the proverbial sunset....
    
19. Race more, work more, grow more and learn of something called 'cross in 96.
20. Meet the most amazing bike freaks and they become brothers and sisters.
    
21. Cross more. Including wearing a dress while doing so.
    
22. Procreate and yield two little Irishmen.
    
23. Decide that Boulder might be a better place to raise them thar kids (that being the guise for a better 'cross scene) and we made a decision in a weekend and move.
24. Meet the most amazing bike freaks and they too become brothers and sisters...

So Belgium. Now do you see? It's like No. 25 on this growing list of things that have so expanded and enriched my life and those around me. It also was a goal to help me laser focus on something during this year...a year I KNEW would be turbulent and it materialized that way. Remember that scene in Star Wars (the original one....not the computer animated shit), when Luke is in the X Wing and needs to drop that bomb in that tunnel to blow up the Death Star and the commander over his head set is shouting "Stay on target...stay on target...". Well, that's what Belgium has been. Belgium (or the promise of getting my act together to go was that little control tower voice helping me to push day by day...for bad or for worse. Creating new channels in the universe and exposing me to what I hope will be the truth about our sport.

I will be sure to blog it.

Thanks for reading. Thank you my beautiful wife for this experience.
GK

Well, it had to happen some time. Paradise needed to remind itself that it does in fact situate itself in the mountains. The pow pow came down last night after a final couple of days of absolute beautiful days in the sun.

The boys and girls will likely cross today...somewhere. 29'ers replacing cross bikes through the snow. Maybe Poormans, maybe long dirt road rides in place of parks and barriers.

Mr. KP sent me the latest on Master's Worlds (yes, I am STILL going!):

U.C.I WORLD MASTERS

CYCLO-CROSS CHAMPIONSHIPS 2008

SATURDAY 19th JANUARY 2008

ZILVERMEER MOL - BELGIUM

PROGRAMME

CATEGORIE DISTANCE START

Men (1943 and older) 30’ 10.03hr

Women (1958 and older) 20’ 10.02hr

Women (1959-1968) 25’ 10.01hr

Women (1969-1978) 30’ 10.00hr

Men (1944-1948) 30’ 11.02hr

Men (1949-1953) 30’ 11.01hr

Men (1954-1958) 30’ 11.00hr

Men (1959-1963) 40’ 12.00hr

Men (1964-1968) 40’ 13.00hr

Men (1969-1973) 40’ 14.00hr

Men (1974-1978) 40’ 15.00hr

...on grandma's blog. Nice to see the family support!

That's right! HA! I'm locked and loaded for Belgium! I am inexplicably excited. This has been an amazing year of ups and downs but my focus on this goal has been what's gotten me though. Each Friday since 2006 my Outlook Reminder throws up a reminder to me that I will be in Belgium in 2008. I see it and I chuckle to myself. I simply visualize what it's going to be like....what I'll see, who I'll meet, how I'll go, how the equipment will work, etc etc and I get into this uncontrollable smile state. Can't wipe it off my mug once my wheels start turning in my head thinking about it.

I will be having some awesome travel companions on the journey and they are working feverishly to get all their plans dialed. I am so pumped.

Mol, baby.

Peanut, you are one hard badass chick. Absolutely PRO as Radio Freddy says. I am re-casting Christine's pics here from a recent posting but this is a testament to hard core cross love. Much props, sister:Mikes bikes look absolutely sick as well. The Vanderkitten Brown is totally rad. I can NOT wait to get my Revolver 29'er built up.
It's getting cold in Belgie says Christine and I am lusting being there. January 9th through the 21st or so it looks like. I think I'm bringing along a surprise guest. I'll let you know when he says yes.

CAN

NOT

WAIT

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So I started this whole diary as an account of what it's like to plan for a year to get to Belgium. It's amazing how my heart has never wavered from the goal. Crazy focus.

The plan thus far:

January 12th 2008: Schriek Groot-Lo CX Belgium
January 13th 2008: Bakel 'Cross Bakel, The Netherlands
January 14-18 2008: Train/Eat/Sleep/Pinch myself
January 19th 2008: Master's World Championships Mol, Belgium
January 20th 2008: My birthday!...oh and Fort 6 'Cross Wilrijk, Belgium

Howie has been so gracious in allowing me such visibility into their experiences over the years racing in Belgium. Thank you my friend.

Now, back to focusing on some family, training, racing an work. Gotta maintain that three part teeter totter...

This is what the Master's World's Jersey looks like. I can dream, can't I? It'll be a success if I can just be pack fodder with these animals in January but I am not rolling over with my legs up in teh air. I'll be going out in a hail of bullets.

Two more big days before the rest comes...only to be followed by the storm which is brewing and will carry on through December. Then rest again. Then Belgium.

The secret society of 'cross freaks got out early yesterday AM to flog each other silly. The moment I opened my eyes, still lying in bed, I said: "I think I need rest." Going out and flogging sort of made that premonition come true in that I mostly played the role of floggee versus flogger. Can't be out front every day I'm learning.

Today was more of the same flogging...although this time self inflicted up Flag for a couple-a tests up, up and up to see where I'm at (and where I've been). A FRESHLY paved Flagstaff as well. So niiiiiiiii. When I woke up today and opened my eyes, the first thoughts were: "I'm going to rail it." After that extreme effort yesterday, I nailed a personal best and a 2nd not-so-bad ascent up that beeatch. The recovery was decent I guess last night. There's nothing that some organic food made by my lady and a 1554 can't solve to aid the sore legs.

So, I'm here. 100's of early AM hours logged, 11 pounds lost since last year, weaknesses worked on. I've learned lots. Lots of balancing. Who knows what the season will bring but I put the work in. The smiles are abound.

Speaking of smiles, today after the self flogging, I jammed down the Creek path to the Research Center to hook up with the fam for some mini-jumpin' with the little Irishmen. Check it.