Hey dudes,

As usual i am behind with my updating, and i am reporting on something old. Before you read on, you may want to check out the team website, as i have written a race report there. Here are some photos from the week, but only the ones from my camera. There are plenty of good ones from the week, and i hope i can get a hold of them so i can put them up at some stage!

The week started in Peachtree city, where there is a Jittery Joe’s store, and we hung out there for a while the day before the tour started, drinking wicked good coffee, and talking to people.

Cesar was having no trouble signing autographs with his wrong hand.

Big Dave, Keally’s Dad, who refers to himself as “Oldy Dave” when making comments on my blog, gave me this towel, which was to be mine, and the team’s motto for the week! I had mentioned this in the previous post, and here is the picture of it.

Jesse also has one of these, but his says “Jittery Joe’s” above Unleash the Fury!

Peachtree City has something like 2000 golf carts in their community, and here is the most “done up” one. I think it was sent to Pimp my Golf-buggy! Everyone seems to travel by golf cart everywhere, and there are even paths made for them. There was a cool road sign for them too, but again, i didn’t have my camera. Anyway, here are Austin and I pretending to go for a drive in this one. It also had a tune it played really loud too! The thing on the roof of the cart is meant to be a bike helmet!

Here is a picture of the jersey i won after stage one, wicked! I did mention the jersey last post, so i wont bore you any more with that. Its pretty bad ass, with a sticker on the front of our team logo.

Neil Shirley has been been a celebrity of late, being the face of some limited edition coffee sleeves at Jittery Joe’s stores. Neil, Trent and Cesar all have them, and Neil even signed one of his - it is going to be on eBay soon!

Here is another edition of the “Trendsetter Willo” outfits! I reckon that as the year rolls on we are going to see some ripper styles from the skipper! He was striking this pose on the team RV, which we were kindly loaned for the tour, and it was SO nice!

I should send out a HUGE thank you to everyone who helped make the race a great week for all of us on the team. Our support staff were brilliant, and thank you to all of our sponsors and fans also, for the great support.

Coming up this weekend is the South East crit series, kicking off with Twilight here in Athens on Saturday. The other exciting thing is that my oldies are arriving tomorrow, so it will be great to see them.

Hope everyone is doing well, and i hope i can get out a new update shortly.

Laters y’all!

Hey y’all,

Just a quick update now that i finally have internet! We had internet the other day, but just not in the room i was staying, so the update didn’t happen!

On Sunday before the tour de Georgia started, i received an email from Keally’s dad, addressed to team director Jesse and myself. Dave had been to the Atlanta Thrashers hockey playoffs game on the weekend, and they handed out little towels with “unleash the fury” written on them. This was to be our motto for the race! I have a photo of the towel, but i didn’t bring the cable to be able to put the photo onto my computer, so i will have to wait till i get home.

Dave also tells me he got a sheet and spray painted in orange on it: “Jittery Joe’s, Unleash the Fury”! He is going to run up and down brasstown bald waving it on Friday, supposedly!

So anyway, that was my motto going into the week, and somehow, at the end of stage one, i was presented with the best young rider jersey! Wicked, bitchin’, bad ass, awesome… I have been trying to come up with some words to describe how cool that was! It was great for the team too, to have someone up on the podium after day one. I guess it is probably the coolest thing i have been able to do in my racing here in the States, so i was super excited! I even got two jerseys! They give you a long sleeve one on the podium (one of those ones they zip up at the back!), with a sticker of the team’s logo, then in the evening, the organisers have a new short sleeve one printed, with the team’s logo, to race in - how cool is that?!

So that is the exciting news i have from the tour de Georgia so far. Day two saw Austin take the most aggressive rider jersey, after throwing punches at every rider and official, and a 150km+ breakaway, with just two other riders, into a head wind! It has been a great tour for the team so far, with Jittery Joe’s getting on the podium twice in two stages!

Well dudes, if we keep getting internet in the hotels, and if i am not too tired, and if we do something worthy of an update, stay tuned… If not, i will have a post out at the end of the tour, with some photos included!

Also, i want to give a huge thanks to all the people who have wished me well, or congratulated me after getting the jersey. I really appreciate your support, it helps… A LOT!!!!

Thanks y’all, unleash the fury!

Howdy dudes,

Hope everyone had a great Easter weekend, and that y’all got to eat heaps of chocolate, like i did!
Some of you may have heard about our US Open race in Virginia over the weekend, and how cold it was, but i don’t think you actually realise how cold it really was! The photos don’t really justify how freezing it was! I have only been in the actual “snowing” snow maybe once in my life, so it was super exciting to be getting ready in it, that’s for sure! I took so many photos because i was so excited about it.

This is what the start area looked like when we rocked up! Wicked!
I should say though, that all of my excitement wore off pretty quickly after the race started, and i realised i had NO feeling in my hands whatsoever! I was actually freaking out that if we had a big crash in the field there was absolutely no way i would be able to stop, because i couldn’t feel my brakes. I also kept it in the same gear for the first hour too, till my hands worked enough to be able to function! The surgical gloves underneath the winter gloves didn’t really help a great deal in keeping the hands warm…

HealthNet were parked beside us, and their bikes looked cold. Everyone’s bikes were cold though, but their’s just came up best on my camera.
It was pretty funny riding in the bunch as the race started, because heaps of riders were sitting upright, clapping their hands, or swinging them, or shaking them, trying to get feeling in their fingers. I find that smacking my hands on the bars repeatedly is the best way to do it!

Our camera man Myles has been traveling around with us for a while now, and has been taking footage for a show about us. I don’t think he was expecting it to be this cold either, and his camera needed a special blanket over it to keep it from catching a chill.

Here is what the cobbled climb we raced up nine times. Fairly hard with a couple of switchbacks, but all the same, it was so much fun to race over cobbles. The race was awesome, and hopefully it will be a regular on the calendar now, and we can do it every year. Willo was our best finisher in seventh, with big Elk not far behind. I had a bit of bad luck with punctures, the first time i have ever had two in a race, and also had the slowest wheel change in history with my second one, that ended my race.

After the race we trekked home in a crowded van, and got in around 2 am! It was worth it though, as i got to wake up to these Easter goodies! Keally really spoiled me! It was also nice to be back in time to have Easter with her, and her oldies came to Athens and we had a nice lunch downtown too.

Those who know me well know that i love cereal, and here is my latest collection! I actually forgot one box for the photo too. I think the cereal cupboard has about 8 or 9 pounds of cereal in it! Its pretty much the best thing ever!

Georgia has also been covered in pollen lately, which is just great for me with my hay fever! This is how much there is, if you can see it on this car! The levels are pretty high, they say if the count per whatever is around 200, it is dangerously high, and we had 2000 the other day!

I will be racing in the Tour de Georgia next week, so this week we have a bit of publicity stuff and things with our sponsors, including our team launch, so hopefully i get some cool photos of that for my next update. Here is a picture of me doing an ergo, and if the picture is clear enough, you may be able to see the puddle of sweat under me! Wicked! Training is going well, so i hope the tour goes well, and then the crit series after it.

Well dudes, happy Easter, and i hope everyone is well. Thanks to the people who made comments on the last post; i think the Pieman, and Dad’s comments had more words than my last post! Everyone else should comment too though, as last time the four comments were well down on the fourteen record!

Laters…