Where is Hofstade? That was the question in the car this morning from my wife, who said her mother said it was near Anvers (Antwerp). I laughed and said that for my mother-in-law, anything north of Brussels was near Anvers (she has lived near Waterloo, south of Brussels, for the past thirty years). Hofstade is a mere 15km from Zaventem towards Anvers, but really nearer to Brussels.

While my bigger question was whether or not it would rain or snow, my wife who was driving was still wondering where Hofstade is. She went there as a kid on day trips to go the beach on the lake. And that is the same park we would be going to today.

Many of our cyclocross races take place in a park. But in this case, think of a race organized to the level of the USPRO Championships in Philly, but held in the park. Thinking of the PRO level organization, imagine that level of staging, race headquarters, spectator crowd control, expo tents, team service areas, and most important in the morning, that level of race signage.

So the event website direction only said to take exit 11 of E19 and go the direction "Bloso Domein Hofstade". Reading those directions still didn’t provide comfort to my wife that we knew where we were going. So we get off on exit 11 and just off the autoroute E19 we see signs for the race. And just 50 meters later at the first intersection, we see multiple signs for the race: teams, VIPs, spectators go straight; Press Room, officials meeting, team reunion, parking A&B, go left. We go left to find the permenance.