Inflicting the hurt: Conor Dunne on the front in his Belgian team colours
Irish international Conor Dunne has just returned to his Belgian base for the coming season and sends us this dispatch in his own inimitable style…..
So I’m back in Belgium! The winter has flown by so quickly. It seems that I left Belgium last year on the ferry and just did a U-turn and came straight back.
I have a few cracking plans for this season which I’m currently implementing. These include: ‘Conor’s first vegetable patch’; an Open University course; and a beard. Beauty. Mullets are so 2011.
I’m staying in the same house and town as last year; Zottegem. With a bit (a lot) of help from Father Conor, I have completely transformed my room. Taken up and binned the carpet, given the room a massive clean and a much more efficient furniture arrangement. For maximum room capabilities ja jonges!
Advertisement
Of course I’m joined in the house again this year by Josh, Jory and Blakey who all bow in my presence. We have two new arrivals; Tatham and Michael Vink.
I’m going to be able to do a sick Kylie Minogue impression by the end of the year that’s for sure, as apart from Josh they are all Aussie/New Zealand. We have already gotten into our first fad of the year: beetroot smoothie. Beetroot is on offer at Lidl at the moment. I’m still finding it hard to get it down me without retching a little… Blasphemy of the beetroot!!! Hopefully the beetroot will be complimented by my joyous crop of spinach in the near future though.
I really want a pet this season as well; maybe a cat? A pet that ate dust so that we wouldn’t have to clean would be pretty cool.
Related News
We are debating chickens at the moment, as I love chickens. But whether plans get off the ground is another matter.
Cycling wise, everything is pretty good and I’m enjoying it. The programme for my team, Vl Technics, is looking pretty cool and the form is good after a solid winter.
I had my first race in Gent-Staden last Sunday. I was feeling pretty good and was going with moves most of the day. Jory went away with 8km to go in a small break and stayed away to take second. So it was a good first weekend of racing for the Wymerschlaan house. Unfortunately, while I was back in the front bunch setting myself up for the sprint the guy in front of me road into the kerb on the last corner with 1km to go, went down, and I was on the floor before I knew it.
So I had to roll over the line on my own… unhappy face.
But in the morning everything was fine, not stiff at all so all good. Just hurt pride! We had a team ride on Wednesday and I was feeling good so looks like the form isn’t hurt either. We’re riding Brussel-Zepperen tomorrow, Sunday; another day another race.
I’ll try and do a blog post consistently throughout the year. Hopefully I will return to my high levels of punctuation and spelling by mid-season.
Cheers
Conor
Twitter: @conordunnealot
Topics
