Benchy Style

So thought my training was coming along nicely in my prep for Southland until I rolled up to my first race back in NZ, Tuesday Night Worlds. The race was pretty brutal with some epic crosswind that’s pretty rare in Nelson. The race splintered to pieces and I ended up getting myself dropped by the big boys…sweet.

Anyway, rocked up to the final round of the Benchmark series yesterday. Was fizzing to test to the legs out and ride along-side the L & M Group boys. The race was definitely a lot cruisier than Belg, it was a pearler of a day and I was feeling like a beast. Unfortunately I couldn’t quite find my way into the break even though I had the legs to. So coming into the finish there were still 3 boys up the road and with a hairy final corner I couldn’t quite hit the front so ended up about 15^th.

Above: The lunge for the line. Congrats to Rob Reid for winning the overall series title. (Notice me mincing in the left hand gutter).

Canny also hooked us up with the sick new Champion System team kit with our new Giro Aeon helmets. Check the photo:

And speaking of new, since I've been back I've been hitting up the new Avantiplus store on Queen St Richmond. It looks pretty tight and the boys in there are alright I guess. So get in there and check it out. Respect

Euro Farewell

Found this little passage I whipped up a few weeks ago but never got round to posting. Might not make sense cos I was jetlagged as a mofo when I wrote it.

So I’m currently sitting in Los Angeles Airport contemplating whether these standby flights are really worth it. I’ve just done a 10+ hour flight from Heathrow to here but the flights are looking pretty full so I could end up spending the night in LAX. And to make things worse, they rolled my Speculoos…WTF!

The Belgie Send-off

Above: One of my las races in Belg

But apart from that little hiccup my overseas experience has finished off on a pretty good note. I finished up the Belgie season in mid-September  before trading in the Belg flatlands for the Alps of Switzerland. Switzerland was an awesome way to tie up the season. It was a holiday where I managed to sneak in a few decent rides in the mountains on the next-door neighbours old cannondale. I actually ended up wikipediaing Switzerland’s highest mountain passes and seeing how many I could tick off the list in the local area of Zurich. Have to say the scenery was epic and the amount of climbs around the place was unreal.

I also spent a fair bit of time with my Swiss cousins and auntie doing a few different things around the place. We went hiking, on a high ropes course, on the rodelbahn (similar to a rollercoaster down a mountain side where you control the speed) and hit up the Lindt Chocolate Factory down the road…such a dangerous place.

After Switzerland I spent a couple of days at young Reg’s place in England. That went pretty quick but I did manage to do a days labour roofing with Reg and the Old Fossil and knocked out a ride on the mounty through the English woods.

And now here I am. Sitting in LA hoping there’s a spare seat.

But anyway, there’s a few people I want to thank for the season. Big thanks to Kris Lozie and the beautiful Krista Lozie who took us in as their own sons in Belg. Also team director Gilbert  for all his help.  To my Auntie Joe for not just putting me up but treating me like royalty in Switzerland and Reg’s old man and mum for putting me up in England. And finally to the boys in the flat for a sweet season all round with some good times.

As for next year I’m planning on once again riding for Tomacc Cycling Team who are showing some interest in going Continental but I guess we’ll see. Either way I will be heading over to Belg in late February for a longer season of around 8 months.

As for now, my next big race will be the Tour of Southland with a few club races and a sneaky Benchmark round to get the peppiness back in the legs.

The Long Awaited

First up I wanna apologize to all the people I've been a bit slack with keeping in touch with since I've been over here. Pretty sure I'm not going to have any mates when I get home.

Well it's been a couple of months since the last post and a lots happened in that time. We now have five guys in the flat with the addition of another Englishmen and a young Australian lad named Skippy. Both are pretty good guys, apart from Steve (sorry Steve mate, it's nothing personal, you're just a bit of a dick). And I've also made friends with a gay barista at the cafe down the road. Even managed to get  few free coffees out of him the other day...MEAN!

On the cycling side of things we've now been introduced to a few different racing types. As well as the usual kermesses we've done a few criteriums which are not so prestigious but a good way of picking up a bit of coin as well as interclubs which are similar to kermesses but longer and include a convoy of team cars and always doping control so there is a much more professional element to it. The first few interclubs weren't so pretty with mechanical issues and illness interfering but the latest interclub was better. It wasa bout 160km in heavy rain and even included a few climbs which is unusual for Flanders racing. Unfortunately we missed the break and once it's gone you're racing for whatever place is left.

The crits have been a bit more eventful, we even managed to bag the win in one of the local crits. Steve won the bunch kick after a perfect leadout from Matt. I've also had some bad luck in the crits. In one I managed to roll a tub and managed to keep the bike up but wrote off my rear Zipp.

Speaking of crashes, young Skippy seems to have developed a taste for Belgium roads. I think he binned it something like 3 times in 2 weeks. The most spectacular when he hit a cone in the middle of the road and landed on his face. It was pretty sick. Even with the grazes on his face, he's still a damn fine looking young gentleman.. just like myself.

Just over a month ago we crossed the ditch to the UK for a week. Had my first introduction to racing in the UK and to be honest with you, I wasn't impressed. I did a small 1 hour race with about 30 guys on a pretty boring little crit circuit. It turned out about a quarter of the starters were on the same team (Team Felt) so the race was pretty negative. I finished 6th in a chase group and funnily enough, Felt came away with nothing after letting a break go with only one rider in a group of 4.

While in England we did manage to hitch a ride into London to check the sights. Matt and I saw all that stuff you need to see so we can tick London off the list. I was pretty impressed with how organised the Underground system is.

The other highlight of England was when we rocked up to the Henley Regatta, a multi day rowing event. We managed to scrounge some tickets into Liander Club were all the other class people mince around. So we jacked up a few mismatching suits and managed to get in. Turns out there was more going on up the road at the local student bar anyway.

Below: The Three Musketeers

                                                

Also rocked up to the medieval town Brugge the other day. I'd heard a legend about a cholcolate shop in Brugge that makes chocolate worthy of kings so we couldn't pass that opportunity. Turns out you ask for how much you want (in our case 2kg) of any type you can imagine and they chisel it off a giant block. It was so good...but so so bad.

Anyway, I'm into my final month now so I'm just going to drive myself into the ground with racing I think. There are a few good local races coming up and hopefully at some stage meet up with K-Rex who's currently stagiaring with Marco-Polo in Belgium. Good stuff Rex.

And congrats to Goat-man who just got engaged to the beautiful Jess Morton.

Tot Zeins,

TA

The Good Life

I've been putting this post off for quite a while in the hope that I'd finally hit up the podium and have something to talk about. But unfortunately nothing to report on the results front. But the sun has come out, the legs have arrived and the results are on the way!

I've spent a few races now trying to help my team mate Matt take a win but unfortunately we haven't been playing the cards right so it's been pretty frustrating picking up a few top 5's but no wins. But it feels pretty good to be amongst it again. The number of kermesses we're doing has really picked up now that it's summer so I think that's helped get me humming again.

In  the next few weeks we will be introduced to our first interclub race as well as our first criterium the next day. The interclubs are a lot more team based and about 40km longer than the kermesses so that'll be interesting. Apparently the one we're doing is pretty sketchy though. Always crashes because of the narrow lanes, and if it's wet it's even more dodgey...should be a blast. Speaking of crashes, I stacked it pretty good a few weeks ago. Attacked into a corner on the first lap and totally misjudged it. Ended up off the side of the road in a ditch. Nothing major but still have something going in in my arm. Might get it checked out if it doesn't sort itself out. The criterium the following day is going to be even more interesting. Haven't had races back to back for over a month now and being a criterium I'm pretty unsure how that'll go.

In just over a week we're taking a little trip to the UK to stay with our English team mates family. Should be good to check out the sights in London and maybe a few other parts of England. 

Our team managers been pretty good to us lately. He invited us to a family function which was pretty big actually. We arrived mid afternoon and joined the family in testing out the seafood buffet. This was then followed by a BBQ, then a fruit salad and some french cheeses. And we had to shot before they cranked into dessert. Not a bad day out though.

That's the manager on my left and his son 2 to my right.

Matt and I also went and helped the manager out with picking up some food for his pet owls. This included picking up 2100 baby chickens (yes i know these are called chicks) that had hatched just that morning, taking them back to Kris' place and suffocating them all the death before freezing them. For our efforts we were rewarded with another huge meal put on by his wife Krista. Yup that's right, Kris and Krista...tragic eh.

Also checked out the beach a few weeks ago. Here's some photo's. Enough said.

Before I sign out just want to congratulate little Sean Hambrook on making the juniour worlds team who will be racing in the Netherlands in September. What a hammer.

That's it from me

TA

14/04/12 Dikkebus Kermesse

Elissa Bargh

This blog is dedicated to you Elissa. Matt might be too cool to give you a shout out but I'm not. Haha

Anyway, one month in and I'm still alive...but only just. I've been pumping out the races recently but unfortunately haven't pulled any results for a while. Just lacking a bit of top end as well as luck at the moment. But I still tend to come away from most races with a huge 10 euros in winnings. We had a race a few days ago and it was good to see little Spaghetti (aka Tom Delany in there). Still struggling to get over the fact that I let him roll me. But in my defense I did nearly lose my back wheel because of a dodgey scewer. I'd have to say I was in contention for crowd pleaser of the day after I got a few OOH's and AAH's when I just about took out a few posts and a crowd of people on the finishing straight.

In the last few weeks I've developed a taste for Belgium roads. Never mind the sketchy narrow lanes we race on with 130+ others, the training rides are proving much more dangerous. Last week I was out for a spin with my teammate Joe in typical Belgium weather (rain and wind). We were riding on a cobbled road when a car hit the brakes in fornt of us. I was only running the rear brake as my front had broken in the race the day before. So it pretty much goes like this: cobbles + rain + speed + one brake = stackage. I slid a fair few metres but luckily the bike was sweet and the kit stayed together!

Joe has been having a bit of trouble on the technical circuits lately so decided he'd do a day of practising cornering. And beeing the good guy I am I agreed to help him out a bit. So we found a little circuit and smashed corners all day. On the last lap it had just started raining and I hit a corner at pace and sure enough, laid it right over. The truth is Joe had me in the box and I just needed an excuse for a lie down. This time I wasn't so lucky, bent derailleur hanger and ripped up the kit a bit (including Joel's leg warmers). Luckily Joel still has trouble reading. Our team director owns the local bike shop so I think he's pretty stoked with all the business I give him.

Our team manager (Chris) has turned out to be a total good sort. He calls us his sons now. A few weeks ago we did a race and all the favourties went up the road. Apparently all the spectators were saying it was race over but Chris told them his sons were in the peloton and we'd bring it back. And sure enough Matt and I manged to bring it back with a bit of help from one or two others. That night he shouted us to the movies (which were in English) and then shjouted a round at the bar after.

The wife hunt is pretty non existent to be honest. I'm sure she's out there somewhere but I haven't really met many people our own age yet. So I'm battling on washing my own dishes and cleaning my own bike but I'll try a few birthday wishes this weekend and we'll see how that goes.

That's about all the excitement I've got today folks.

Bam Bam

Boomchakalaka

A wise man once gave me some advice on doing something new. He said, the first time you try something, you will be pretty useless. The second time you do it you will show a big improvement. And the third time you do it, you will be worse than the first you tried it because you’re over confident. I wish I listened to that guy.

Woke up this morning feeling like superman, pretty confident after making the front group in both of my first 2 kermesses. So decided I’d step it up a notch and go for a win. I put on the race wheels and went into the race backing myself 100%. 

The circuit didn’t look too hard and the wind was just a breeze at the start/finish so I predicted the race would stick together for at least a few laps. I was totally wrong. The pace went on straight away and I found myself too far back. On the first cross wind section the race blew apart. I ended up in the second group on the road. In an attempt to make the front group I attacked and put myself right into the red zone, didn’t manage to bridge it and ended up almost right at the back of the race after not being able to recover.

So in the end I ended up riding almost the entire race in a bunch of 4, with 2 of us lapping (the other guy was a huge rig, he made Clinton Avery look like a little boy). We were the 4^th bunch of the road and ended up sprinting for 31^st. I came in 32^nd after the big man rolled me.

Matt was our top rider finishing in 18^th as part of the third group on the road.

So lesson learnt and as my good mate Katy Perry tells me, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But I did come away making a profit of 5 Euro! I love you Belgium.

Cheers Murray

Kermesse #2

Belgium decided our first kermesse was too easy so decided to ramp it up a bit by making our second kermesse a pretty brutal ride. It was our intro into Under 23 racing, 14 laps of an 8km circuit. The first half of the circuit was pretty technical with some tight corners and crosswind while the other half was a uphill headwind drag followed by a fast downhill tailwind to the finish. And sure enough, a Belg kermesse isn’t the same if it’s not wet. But they did chuck a bit of coin towards the primes in on every lap too.

Race started and I felt like a demon. The belgies didn’t seem too keen to hit the wet corners at pace so I could move up through the turns pretty easily. Hit up a few early moves and took the first prime of the day without too much difficulty. But early in lap 3 someone stacked it a couple of wheels ahead of me. I ended up off the road and the pelo completely split in two.  Our bunch wasn’t working well and the front group wasn’t coming back at all so I decided to play the patience game. When we hit the technical part of the circuit I started drilling it through the turns and pulled back a 30 second gap on the front group solo. Luckily I managed it because only 5 other riders managed to make it across the gap about a lap later.

We dropped a few other boys and ended up with a bunch of about 15 including some good teams such as the Quickstep team. With 3 laps to go one of the teams sent a man up the road and that was it. His team was blocking and we never got it together to pull him back. But he must have been an oxe to stay out front for 3 laps. In the final lap it split up a bit, Matt rolled in 2^nd and I picked up 7^th in the sprint.

A good day out in my books. Matt and I both picked up 2 primes on top of the placings so a bit of food money for this week...hello waffles      ! Also good to see a few other kiwis in there, Sean Joyce and Simon Finucane riding for Bianchi.

So yer, life’s still good over this neck of the woods. Gotta cut down on the food bill though. And we had a bit of an issue with visas today but I think/hope we got that sorted.

Looking forward to mixing up some curry this weekend with 2 kermesses back to back! Shit yea Murray.

So Euro

Finally managed to hook onto the neighbours internet so no more romaing the streets looking for wifi. So now I can get the blog updates rolling.

So I hit up the Tour of Canterbury as well as Graperide in the last couple of weeks in NZ. Had to bluff my way through a bit as the form wasn't really there. Big ups to my teammates Sam and especially Jo Chapman who worked themselves over for me at Canterbury. But unfortunately all I came away with was a 3rd on stage 1. Graperide was a similar story and I came in 6th.

But that's old news, since then I've made my way around the world to Poperinge, Belgium where I'll be racing for the next 6 months with Tomacc Cycling Team. Spent the first few days in a hotel with 2 teammates, Matt Wheatcroft (NZ) and Joe Harris (Eng). Now we've moved into the new flat which I have to say is a big step up after last years flat in the States. Although the Englishman is a bit of a loose cannon and talks more s*** than Jay from Inbetweeners. (He'd probably take that a compliment).

A couple of days after arriving we went to check out Ronde Van Vlaanderan (The Tour of Flanders), a pro race that had a few kiwis in there. We set up on the cobbled climb up the Kwaremont where the atmosphere was pumping. I was giving the kiwis a bit of abuse and I see Roly mentioned in his blog that he heard some hearty kiwi support up  the climb. 

The training around here is pretty sick. We're only a few k's from the French border so we've been hitting up a bit of altitude training in the mountains on the border up to a whopping 100m above sea level! Nah seriously though, there are a few hills including the famous Kemmelberg which is a brutal cobbled climb that is used in the Belgium classics. Picked up my fist puncture up there the other day. I've been knocking up some k's to make up for my lack of training over summer. It's so good having all this time to train. Yesterday I went out for 6 hours but it turned into 7 after I tried to take a shortcut home. Hit the wall but stoked to be back into it.

 We had our first kermesse the other day. It was 17 laps totalling 120km with a 100m cobble section leading into the finish. Didn't really know what to expect so just rolled in the bunch for the first lap. The pace wasn't too bad and it was a little sketchy in the pelo so I went on the attack and made the split with Matt. We started hussing and the time gap grew pretty quick. I was loving the fact that you could lap hard knowing that someone would always follow through (unlike some of the racing in NZ). The Belgies love to give a few hand slings too to keep the bunch rolling. Matt took a few primes until some Belg rider had a go at him for taking too many primes and chopped him coming into the start/finish. I spent most of the race trying to work out how Matt knew there were primes for that lap. Turns out there were primes every lap. With 3 laps to go we nearly had 3 mins so I had a crack but the Belgies weren't keen to go that early so with a lap and a half to go they started launching and I gave 100% trying to pull it back for Matt but in the end he finished 6th and I got 12th. But it's all part of the learning curve.

A few photos here (in black, blue and white kit) : http://www.cyclingnews.nu/fotopaginas%202012/Bredene04-04-2012.htm#Woensdag

We had team preso the other night which was mad. We were all interviewed and there was a famous Belgie dancer who cut some shapes at the end of the night. There's a bit of talk going round about the team merging with a British team to form a Continental team next year so we can race some UCI tours so there could be opportunnities for next year.

But other than that, I just want to help the team pull some results this season and I would be stoked to find a Euro wife while I'm here!

Enough talk for one day.

Blogging Again Due To High Demand

Ladies n Gentlemen, Boys n Girls, I know many of you have struggled over these last few months without a few yarns to read on here. But don't fret, T.A has returned.

So Once upon a time (December) I got my archilles problem sorted and hopped back on the bike to start pumping some k's for vineyards and elite nationals. But to be honest with you, I wasnm't feeling it at all. I felt average on training rides and was getting dropeed in club races but didn't want to let the team down again by pulling out of vinnies. So I battled on and dug myself a nice little hole. Hit Vineyards and morale was estimated at a value of 3.5%. But i grovelled my way through and by the end I couldn't even bear (or maybe "bare") to look at my bike. So hung it up and decided I'd just start riding when I felt like it again. So it hung, and hung, and hung. Elites came and went, Hub tour came and went, but the bike remained.

So I just carried on with my building and made the most of my weekends doing stuff other than riding like heading down Crail Bay with the boys, hitting up Felix n Cush's wedding, maybe drinking a little too much here n there and just laxing out at the beach with family and friends. And it felt pretty good. Many moons later I started to feel the pull of my bike. We were meant to be together. So I started doing a few gentle rides which became big rides which then turned into club racing again. Nek Minnit I've decided to hit up Belgium in a few months and I'm feeling pumped with motivation again.

So the plan is maybe do a few NZ races before I go. Got to improve on last years result at Graperide, maybe do Brunner, Oceanias and even Club nats if I'm still around.

So there you have it folks.

P.S if you wand a cheap bryton rider 50 or some sick BBB sunnies check the links.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/sports/cycling/parts-accessories/computers/auction-443878176.htm

http://www.trademe.co.nz/sports/cycling/shoes-apparel/other/auction-443875918.htm