Land of The Long White Cloud

The blog updates seem to be becoming a rare occasion these days. I also here (thanks to Kieran Hambrook) that the language isn't acceptable so I'll tone that down too just for you bro.

Well I finished up my track season in the US of A with Madison cup, which I'm not gonna lie, hurt pretty bad. The night contained two madisons (the second being 120 laps of a 333m track) as well as the other solo races. I pulled off a second and a 4th on the night which I was pretty happy about.

As I strarted to find my legs in the last month of track racing, it converted beautifully to my crit racing. Although I didn't pull any good results in the crits, I did start picking up a lot of primes which helped pay the grocery bill each week. One crit I did had primes every second lap! Unfortunately I didn't realise the primes became more and more throughout the race and spent far too much energy off the front early on chasing smaller primes. Still came away with a bit of cash in pocket so can't complain there.

Unfortunately the track legs didn't serve me so well when it came to stage racing. I attempted to ride Green Mountain Stage Race up in Vermont (near the Canadian border) in my final week of being in the US. Unfrotunately I was strong enough to make the breaks and drive them on the flats but when I hit the hills I suffered like a dog. And believe me, this was not the flattest of tours! Stage two finished up a 20% climb onto Apalanche Gap where (according to the race manual) we had to be careful of moose.

To add a little more excitement to my final few weeks in the US, hurricane Irene decided she'd pay us a visit. But she wasn't so angry when she got to kutztown. We had some pretty gnarly flooding etc but apart from that it was actually pretty good.

So I decided I'd fly out of the New York on September 11 weekend (the 10th Anniversary too) so securtiy was pretty tight but I still managed to get my Blow Gun into the country which I was stoked about. About 24 hours later I landed in Nelson Airport and caught the flu that arvo. The weather was cold but amazingly clear skies!

So I just want to thanks everyone who helped me out in the states. First off Marty Nothestein who sorted out accommodation and a trackbike, the Mente's for letting us crash whenever and use their pool when temperatures were enough to cook a roast in, the Noonan's for putting me up for the final few weeks and finally all the poeple I had some good times with.

Anyway, when I ogt back to NZ, I took a week off before smacking up some base k's again. Unfortunately into my second week of base I strted aching around the achilles area of my foot. So for the last week I've been trying to sort that out so haven't been getting the lead up that I really need for Southland in 3 weeks! But I've been to physio and reckon I know what's goin on so hopefully will be back on the bike ASAP.

I attempted to ride benchmark round 3 in Cust on Saturday. Unfortunately the fott was aching a bit and on top of that I punctured 50km in and wasn't allowed to use the convoy to get back on to the pelo so that was race over. On my ride back to the startline I got attacked by some angry magpie too. Thinking I might take my blow gun for the benchy round. But it was still good to meet up with my team L & M Group Racing before Southland.

That's it form me.
Chur