Benelux Skike Championships 2009

Last year Jim found a way to continue his cross country skiing obsession without snow. He bought a pair of Skikes. Skikes are a cross between cross country skiing and in line skating. Most cross country skiing aficionados in the US use roller skis during the summer months. Skikes differ from roller skis in that they have brakes so are much safer and can go off road on dirt / rocky terrain. Skikes were only created about 3-4 years ago so it is still quite a new sport and hasn’t hit the US yet.

After taking a few bad spills on pavement last winter on his brand new Skikes, they ended up in the corner of our storage unit in exchange for his bike.

However, about 2 weeks ago Jim was surfing the internet and found a race in the Netherlands. He decided that although he hadn’t skiked in last 8 months, it would be a good idea to compete in the Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) Skike 2009 Championships. So Jim dusted off his Skikes and did some panic training for the next two weeks.

The race was last Sunday so we piled into the car and set off for the Netherlands once again. We had some difficulty finding the race. The website had given only GPS coordinates for the start and our GPS of course kept trying to take us on pedestrian/ bike only dirt trails to get there. After about 5 wrong turns we finally found the event.

Due to the fact that this is quite a new sport, the turn out for the race wasn’t huge which is probably good. I had visions of an incredibly chaotic mass start with poles flying and Jim ending up in the emergency room.

Thankfully they had a time trial before the race so they had the racers line up according to the results in the time trial. Jim finished 6th in the time trial so was up in the front for the start.

The race was great for spectators because it was 3 laps rather than an out and back so we could see how Jim was doing during the race. He ended up finishing 7th or 8th. We miscounted the laps (yes, I know, three laps shouldn't be all that confusing. Can you have baby brain before the baby is actually born?) so actually missed his finish. Since we couldn’t really understand anything at the awards ceremony, we weren’t sure what his time was or where he officially placed. He did however, make the local news. http://www.l1.nl:80/content/4184582

We took a picture with the winner of the race. He was a really nice guy. He came over to talk with Jim and to thank him for coming. The guy was a former Dutch national cross country skier who now lived in Austria and was somehow involved in the organization of the race.