G’day y’all,
I have just got back from a somewhat disastrous weekend in Redlands, CA. We had really high expectations as a team for Redlands, and things started really well with Cesar taking third in the prologue. The next day was the infamous Oak Glen stage, finishing atop a 10km climb, although it felt like 10 miles! Last time Cesar rode this stage, he and Chris Horner came in more than one minute ahead of third place, so we were banking on him doing something similar. Instead, he crashed out nearing the climb, breaking a bone in his wrist, and separating his shoulder pretty bad. We hope he has a speedy recovery and can get back into his great form again shortly.
The next day we had the crit, and i got my first somewhat of a result, coming in fourth, after being in a break for the last hour or so. That was the first time i have ever been in a situation like that here in the States, so i hope i can get more used to it!

Redlands wasa really pretty city, and had palm tree lined streets all over. On the first day we got there, it was really windy and the mountains that tower over the city looked amazing - i should have taken a photo that day! It is near impossible to see the hills in this picture, however, it is nice knowing they are there for if we get a rainy or windy day to wash down some of the pollution!

One reason for the slackness in getting a new post up has been the lack of internet i have had lately. Willo and i couldn’t even get it at the local cafe, so we found a park with a very faint signal, and that became our internet headquarters for the week! Now that i am back, i should be a bit more punctual with the updating! I have also had a bit of difficulty getting the photos posted, but i am in the process of having that all sorted too! I am good at making excuses!

As has become somewhat customary for our team, if we head out for a dinner, it is always some lucky team member’s birthday. On this occasion it happened to be Director Jesse’s!

When we found that you even get sung to if it is your lucky day, we found it even funnier, especially when this big man with the high pitched voice comes out singing “happy birthday” in Italian! Lucky Jesse got to enjoy his birthday cake while being sung to and feeling so important!
After the racing was over i had to get the “red eye” home. It was great to get back and see Keally after three and a half weeks on the road, and nice to get back to the roads i know here too.
This weekend is off racing for me, so i will be training the house down getting ready for the inaugural US Open Championship in Richmond, VA! The race is pretty long, and at the finish we do a few laps of a circuit that has a cobbled climb in it. It is going to be wicked! There is a steep cobbled climb here in Athens, so i have been training up it, pretending i am doing the Tour of Flanders, but now it has become training for the US Open! Wicked!

Here is something else that everyone needs to know; our team captain, Willo, is larger than life! Check out this picture in our team shop, The Hub. This is right behind the counter, and it is huge!
Well dudes, hope all is well, and a HUGE thank you to everyone who made comments last time, i have a new record now, beating the old one by three comments! It is great because now i feel like people actually read what i write!
Anyway, hopefully i have a new post out this week soon…
Laters

G’day readers,

I say that quite loosely, as i am not sure how many people are reading my new blog here at missingsaddle.com! If you are reading, please make a comment so as i know the comments thing works! It isn’t that hard really, i mean, i figured it out… You only need to leave your email address and a name, you can even make up a name if you like. The email address you leave will not be sent random emails trying to sell you stuff, it is just so i can be told by email someone has left a comment at the site. I am mainly sending this message to Wilksch, DeLuca, Dad, (Keally!),(she is in brackets as she just made a comment!) and my other regular comment makers, cos i am missing reading them!!!!

Well now that i got that whingeing out of the way i can continue with an update!

OK, I just figured out that i had a heap of comments waiting to be approved, MY BAD! I didn’t realise i needed to do that, so now i will make sure they all come through! I left my little sook up from the previous paragraph so everyone can have a laugh at my expense! What a goose! Oh well, the coments thing is sorted now, and i am sorry if your names were mentioned!!!! haha!

Things are going well here in San Diego, and last week i got to ride with two very good friends of mine from Orange County, who made the trek down to San Diego, Marc, and Patrick, from Laguna Cyclery. When i came to the States in 2005, on my own, these guys were fantastic in helping me out, getting me to races, and finding me a place to live, so it was great to be able to ride with them again!

We got to do a great ride, which somehow we ended up on one of the rides we did two weeks ago at training camp, and had a great time catching up. It was great to see they are both still doing well, and hopefully they will make it out to Redlands to watch the race there this weekend. For anyone who does go, you will know if Marc is there, because you will hear him from a mile away!!!!

At San Dimas, we got to do an uphill TT, which is always fun, followed by a road race, then a crit. While warming up for the TT, i came across a sign warning people in the area of Mountain Lions, and to please keep children in sight at all times. I figured i didn’t want to venture too far off road myself, because i am sure a mountain lion could do a bit of damage to me too, not just a young child!

Willo showed off his trendsetting style, getting changed out of his cycling gear, but leaving his cycling shoes and shoe covers on! I think it is going to be the new “in thing” and all the fans are going to start doing the same thing…

San Dimas was a bit of a nightmare for Jittery Joe’s. The TT was more than likely won by our Japanese star Cesar Grajales, but some timing confusion meant he was given 4th place for the stage, but we still had big Neil Shirley in 3rd, so it didn’t matter too much.
The next day we had the road race, and all was going good, and then when the split happened and we got Cesar and Neil in it, it was great! That was until they both punctured within a kilometer of eachother, and didn’t get back to the break - you couldn’t think of a worse way to have the race taken out of our grasp! At the end of the day all we could do was laugh!
Also, Cesar made up for the bad luck of Saturday by winning the criterium on Sunday! Wicked!

On the way back from San Dimas we saw a truck that tried to enter the freeway as fast as a formula one driver, and found that he probably doesn’t have the cornering ability of one of the race cars. I reckon i did a good job a snagging the photo as we drove past pretty quick! Makes for an interesting blog photo too!

One other interesting photo taken out training was on our way to the coast on a coffee shop/recovery ride:

We were crossing a bridge and got held up by Willo, complete with his cans from the night before. It was difficult to get past him, but we did manage. I reckon he did a good job of being able to ride with so much stuff hanging off him and his bike!

Wel dudes, that’s all for now. We leave for Redlands tomorrow, where we are hoping to have luck on our side, and get a good GC result for the team. Things are going great, and i am sure if luck had gone our way on the weekend, Cesar or Neil could well have been in the leader’s jersey at the end of the weekend.

This page still has a bit more developing to happen, but it is headed in the right direction. So i hope y’all are enjoying it! Feel free to comment, or even if you don’t feel like it, just do it anyway!

Laters…

Ok dudes, here is my new blog site. I think it is a better way to go than blogspot, as missingsaddle is a website for cycling specific blogs. I reckon its a wicked good idea! It has also allowed me to put a better picture at the top of the screen, not the one in my kit from last year. Also, i get a seperate page for links, biography, and photos. Bad ass!
You will find blogs (written, audio, and video) from a number of cyclists at this site, so its good to check out and see whats going on around the traps.

I will be better at updating this site, and especially now the season has started, i will find more interesting things to write about. On that, if anyone has anything they would like me to write about, please leave a comment below, and i will endeavour to do something about it when i get the opportunity.

Now, for an update on what’s been happening on the cycling front…
Last week the team finished up the training camp, and headed North to the Central Valley Classic, our first NRC appearance for 2007, in the “super happening” town of Fresno, CA! The weather was a bit nicer this year, but the racing sure was harder! We kicked off with a very early start on Friday with the road race, then a TT Saturday, where i had my first ever appearance on a time trial bike, with disc wheel, and aero front wheel! I was only lacking the TT helmet, so for those wondering what might have happened, the helmet was the only thing holding me back from winning…! Sunday wrapped up the racing with a criterium, which included a U-turn in the circuit - not a whole lot of fun.
It was good to have a race, to make all the training seem worthwhile, but at the same time, it would have been nice to pull in some results. I reckon with a few more races in the legs, and as a team, we will find a lot of success this year, as we have a great bunch of guys here at Jittery Joe’s for 2007.

On one of the last days of our training camp, we decided it was time to repay DS Jesse for all of the hard work he had done for us throughout the week, so Hop and Willo decided to take on the roll of DS’s for the DS, while he was out running!
I should also note, this training camp we had in San Diego was brilliant, we all had a ball, and i think it is going to be one of the best things we do all year, in shaping us as a team, and making us more professional. Cheers to Jesse and Micah, and everyone else who made it happen!

We were put up in some great host housing in Fresno, and were treated so well. We returned the favour by milking the cow for Bob at the house we stayed at!

All of the host houses we stayed at (three of them) were on the same two blocks, so we spent a bit of time at all three houses. Tezza, who put on a great feed for us on the last night, had the most heavy duty beat box we have ever seen! Hop thought he needed to pose for a photo with it, or i told him he had to, seeing as he is the king of posing for a snap! That is one bad ass beat box!

Fresno was really exciting to train at! On Monday, before we headed back to San Diego, we went for a ride in Fresno. It was great to see such varying scenery, and the roads were great too. I think this photo gives a pretty good idea of everything we got to see on the ride. Maybe the one thing we left out was the tents set up on the footpath where a few people were living…

We are now back in sunny San Diego, and life is pretty tough here! A few of us will be staying to race in San Dimas this weekend, so that will be cool, it’s a great race. Till then we’ll be enjoying the great training here, and getting in some relaxing.

I hope y’all like the new web page. It will be developed a bit more over the next weeks, and by then it will be WICKED! I am so excited about it!

Stay cool dudes… Laters.