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