Jonathon Page diary: Belgian pressure cooker
Due to a series of technological downfalls on top of buying a house here in Belgium, I haven't been...
Due to a series of technological downfalls on top of buying a house here in Belgium, I haven't been able to write a diary until now...I'll try to catch you all up as briefly as I can and as much as I remember from the last month.
I'll start with the house. As of Thursday, we are first-time house owners, which I suppose is confusing and requires many steps in America, and now we are in a foreign country. We spent weeks driving here and there to sign bank papers, house papers, foreigner documents and who knows what else. Then, our computer broke, our cell phones both quit working with our sim cards here, our camera broke (which doesn't seem like a big deal until you consider that all of our family lives in America and they want to see pictures of Emma and they want to see them NOW!!) and our clutch cable broke in our van on the way to a race (can't find em? Grind em!). Plus I had a lot of bike work to do all by myself. So we were trying to figure all of that out on top of the daily life tasks. It has been a little overwhelming, but we are still smiling.
This brings me to the next section of this diary. My racing. I received lots of emails (which I would receive by calling someone and having them read them to me or trying to use the library computer with the Euro keyboard - arrgh) and phone calls of "what HAPPENED to you for two weeks?". The answer: stress + training + travel + racing = riding like crap! You can understand that, right? Now I am finally back on track. The phones work. We have a new computer and camera. The clutch is smooth. The number of races per week and the distance to travel between them has lessened. The house papers are signed and we only have to move in now. And perhaps the biggest stress reducer has been that I now have help with the bikes. A good friend of mine is now helping with all of my mechanic work so the amount of time I spend in the garage has been significantly reduced.
Read the entire Jonathan Page diary here.
Get The Leadout Newsletter
The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!