Anytime now, I am waiting for the International Brussels Sprouts Growers Association to send me a check. Seriously, I bet I have converted more people to Brussels Sproutsism than just about anyone. I simply love the things and think you should try my little recipe here – maybe even for that oh so opulent holiday of Thanksgiving – so that you too might become one of the followers.

The funny thing about Brussels sprouts is that I never even had a chance to eat the things when I lived in Belgium, because they were supposed to be bad for bike racers, but that hasn’t stopped me from taking a cue from country-style Belgian cooking and coming up with my own recipe for these tiny little cabbage-type things. In all reality, I reckon that some great pro just didn’t like them, and complained that they made him slow, so they instantly became “bad.”

First off, for those of you who don’t like measuring, you’re in luck, because neither do I. This is going to be a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants procedure here, so relax and prepare to create some green-(ish) art. 

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Jerry K - Birmingham, Alabama

Well-sir, to tell you the truth, my feeble brain has a hard time with box scores sometimes, which is ultimately why I had to quit baseball and take up bike racing - baseball is all about box scores and numbers and whatnot, while bike racing is just about "go."

Seriously, I have known/known of Jonathan Page for a long time, and utmost respect only sort of starts to come close. But back to the box score thing ... I am not proud to say it, but I really haven't paid close attention to how JP has been riding lately. I often think that if I had a chance to do it all over again I would have gone the cyclocross route, so I am at least glad that someone with the initials JP has.

Jerry, you bring up a good point - and further applause for you for paying attention to a rider who has chosen to do it the hard way. But your question has also opened the floor for a wee rant ... so I will go ahead and grab hold of the talking stick.

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Justin B - Stillwater, Oklahoma

Stillwater, OK - the home of the great Guy Cooper. I spent about a week there a few years ago riding motorcycles at the Stillwater Cycle Park. We had to go buy memberships to the club at a local bicycle shop that was run by Guy's sister. A bunch of guys were trying to do this jump in between some trees and no one was really having all that much luck with it. All of a sudden, some dude on a big KTM, wearing jeans and a pocket t-shirt starts nailing it. After he'd jumped it 4-5 times I saw him land, pull over and cut the motor, and then answer his cell-phone that was in the pocket of his t-shirt. It was Guy Cooper himself.

Justin, the answer is yes, racing for recreation is a blast, and I believe it's a very worthwhile pursuit.

But ... you knew there would be a but ...

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Dave Fahrner - Santa Rosa, California

That sounds like a great idea, Dave. I highly recommend it.

Personally, I think that for the real Classics experience you should try and check out at least one of the three races of what I like to call The Classics Week. It all starts with the Ronde van Vlaanderen on April 4th - Easter Sunday. If you can only take in one event and are looking for the crazed Euro-fan, knock-down, drag-out bike race experience, this is the one to take in. The Ronde van Vlaanderen is admittedly not as much on the radar of American fans as Paris-Roubaix is, but most of us consider it to be the harder of the two. Also, without too much difficulty, you can check out at least a couple different sweet cobbled climbs without having to break too many laws. In fact, I have often talked about bringing a small group over for the Ronde and riding bikes from one cool viewing spot to the next.

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Kevin Bengtson - Minneapolis, Minnesota

Well Kevin, that's sort of a tricky question, since riding trainers indoors during the Minnesota winter is basically torture, for the most part. Sure, I could list off a whole bunch of beautiful and hard-fought bike races for you to dream about while you're sweating all over your basement floor, but that just might do you a disservice. Unfortunately too, so many of what I would call "the best races of all time" aren't available on DVD anywhere.

It's also really hard to pin down what the absolute best races were, since they all have some cool, redeeming qualities to them. My pick for the most amazing Tour de France ever is definitely Greg LeMond's 1989 8-second victory. Other than that, every race is pretty special.

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