Howdy all,

This may be a pretty uninteresting read for most, but i feel like i should write a post, even if there is nothing exciting going on, bicycle racing-wise, that is!

My days are pretty exciting, filled with training, eating, and drinking coffee, as well as spending time with Keally. Nothing too exciting for most, but for me, its living (well, chasing) the dream (picture Will Ferrell in Wedding Crashers with his arms in the air)!

Basically, i get up (hopefully after 9, but usually earlier) and start the coffee pot, filled with Jittery Joe’s coffee. Prior to this year, i couldn’t tell the difference between any coffee, but the guys at Jittery Joe’s have got me right into it, and i am starting to be able to tell the difference between different blends now! I drink the coffee in my big mug that Barbara Dowd painted for me, she was kind enough to give one each to Keally and I - they are huge, so i only need to have one refill in the morning!

Next up i hook into the cereal. Some people need coffee to function, while i need cereal.

This picture has been used before, but i can use it again! I fill my bowl up with three different cereals, and what they are depends on the mood i am in, or the mood i was in when i was at the store buying them! The cereal is then topped with yoghurt, and fruit, just so i feel healthy! Man, i love cereal, it is by far my favourite food. I should also add, my wonderful Mum bought us some containers to store the cereal in that comes in a packet, so that i would think of “my darling Mum” ever time i used them, and i should say, it worked!

After breakfast, I give Keally a kiss goodbye as she takes off to class, then i turn on SportCenter to see if Barry Bonds has hit any more home runs, or if the Pistons are still kicking arse! If these things are happening, i get all gee’d for a good day of training!

I roll out the door, and meet whoever i am meeting at the Jittery Joe’s roasting house. We hang out for a bit, then drink some more coffee, then some more coffee, then a little bit more. Its great down there, and it smells SO good!

Charlie (left), and Phillip are the guys who give us the best coffee in the country. They are so particular with every bean they roast, and it really shows in the taste! They are so much fun, and its a great way to kick-start the morning!

There is a cool tricycle at the Roasting House, well, heaps of them really, but this is the one i like the most. It is one of the original delivery bikes for Jittery Joe’s, and it is a ripper! It would make for a great cruiser for heading downtown in Summer, and the tray could hold a few beers (if i were to be a drinker)!

By the time we finally start training, we are pretty jittery from caffeine overload (if there is such a thing)! It doesn’t take long before i can get lost on the country roads of Athens, and end up in the middle of Nowhere! I guess its not too funny, but it is a good road for training, and has a great name too…

Once i get home from training, i look at my BT Ergo and wonder if i have trained hard enough, of whether i need to get on it for a session of pain. Usually, if i have a recovery day, i avoid the ergo, but when big races are coming up, i give myself a flogging till i cant even walk!

After the day’s training is done, i will have a bit more coffee, then do some practising on my didgeridoo. I have a good photo of me busting out some cool tunes, but for some reason i have this really good way of filing my pictures, so good, that i cant find what i am looking for! I will put that up in my next post!

After my music session, i check out the internet and watch some more SportCenter, and wait for my beautiful girlfriend to arrive home. We then eat some dinner, have a good chat, then talk some more, then bit more chat, then do some sit ups and push ups, then its off to bed.

I guess its not too exciting, but i love it. Now i am on the road to do some races. Maybe i can do a “day in my life… race day” some time. That would be wicked good exciting, if you found this one exciting!

Anyway dudes, i hope y’all are well, and i look forward to hearing from people!

Laters…

Oh, i nearly forgot, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Keally, who had her birthday last Tuesday! X

Howdy everyone,

Happy Mother’s Day to my wonderful Mum, the best Mum in the world, and also to all of the other Mums/Moms out there.

After getting through the South East crit series last week, and getting in fifteen race days in 21 days, i decided to have a bit of time off the bike, and it was great! The racing was really good, although the body was definitely feeling it after doing the hardest tour i have ever done, followed by a bunch of crits, just five days later, and crashing hard on day one! It was great to do all the racing, but i was in desperate need of a few RDO’s after that!

Keally finished up her exams on Tuesday, so we packed up and headed for Hilton Head, South Carolina straight after she was done. Her grandparents (Patty and Harry) live down there, so it was nice to have a place to stay, on the water, and on the golf course!

We kicked off the drive by stopping at a road-side food stand, and bought some very “Southern”, boiled peanuts. They are actually pretty good, but they give you a bucket that is just way too big, and there are no smaller sizes!

The first lagoon i saw at Hilton Head, had an alligator in it! I threw some pine cones at it, and it started heading towards me, so i thought i should jump back in the car. It is pretty amazing how people live with these lagoons in their backyards, and alligators live in the lagoons!
The day after i saw my first alligator, in the same lagoon was this baby one. I am not sure if it were real or not, or if it were a decoy the big alligator set up to try and trap me, but i did get close enough to get this cool photo of it!

We stayed just near Harbor Town, which is in Sea Pines resort, and this place was super fancy and nice! The harbour had a heap of really flash boats docked there, and just on the other side was a golf course too. The lighthouse in the background is a bit of a land mark on Hilton Head Island.

On the way to the beach, we passed a “bikes for hire” place, with a few beach cruisers, just a few!

Sitting on the back porch at Keally’s grandparents, we were able to look down the 14th hole of Long Cove Country Club, and i thought this made for a good photo, as we prepared to watch the sun set; a manhattan with dip, looking down the fairway… You could do worse!

In the evenings we were able to play a hole, which was literally out the back door. Here i am showing off my style; take note of the hat, true golfing style!

This is the view of Keally’s grandparent’s house from the green, it is about 50 meters away.

Here is my beautiful girlfriend showing her technique with the golf sticks! She is also kicking the golf hat for the good of the photo. This is the 15th tee, and in the background you can see Patty and Harry’s place, and the lagoon by their house. There are no alligators living in this lagoon, i am told. If there were, i would have stayed somewhere else!

At the dock across the road, Harry has some crab nets, and here are a couple of the day’s takings. They will be cleaned up and cooked into some pretty nice crab thingy.

We had a great time down at Hilton Head, and it was great to have a couple of days off. I am now back into full training for Philly week, and the crits that are on in the week before that.

Something else interesting i did on the weekend, was return to my roots, and get on the track for a race! I guess most of the people who know me know that i got into cycling through the track, and i am so grateful for my track background. I began racing at the Carnegie track in Melbourne when i was fourteen (i think, maybe thirteen), and it really helped develop me as a cyclist. Racing here in the States, in the crowded bunches, and in the super fast crits has been made easier for me due to my track racing background. Track helps develop a good pedaling action, and general skills required in all areas of cycling.

The racing i did on the weekend was at East Point Velodrome, in the ghetto, and it was the bumpiest track i have ever been on! The festival of speed race that was on didn’t quite get to complete the program, as it got rained out, which was unfortunate, but the organisers put on a great race program, and hopefully i can get back there for the next one.

Well anyway dudes, i am off to bed. Hi to Mum and Dad, now that they have arrived back in Oz, after their holiday. Hope everyone is well.

Laters…

Howdy y’all!

Here is another delayed update, from the sandwich factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina. This has become somewhat of a regular hang out before the Spartanburg crit, as we spend a good 3 - 4 hours here last year, and today, it is going to be around 6 hours! Here is the cool place, with great food, and decent coffee, even if it isn’t Jittery Joe’s coffee:

Last week I had a visit from my parents, and it was great to see them, and also great for them to see how living and racing is for me here in the States. We had a great time, it was just a pity we didn’t have long enough together! Mum and Dad got to meet Keally for the first time, and her parents too. Mum goes nuts with the camera, so we got heaps of photos taken, which is always good for the collection, and gives me some to put on the blog too!

Mum has always been nagging me that she never gets a photo on my blog, so here she gets a go:

This picture is Mum’s first appearance on here, and that might keep her happy for a while now! Keally has also been giving me a hard time about not having a picture up on my new missing saddle blog, so she is also making her first appearance, although i can be sure there will be plenty more of her throughout the season! In my defence, when i was originally loading pictures onto the photos page, i started to put some up of Keally, but i overused my storage limit, so they couldn’t be uploaded!

Dad has had a couple of pictures up before, and that is what Mum got up me about! I think he has one doing some work in the back room back in Oz in the last photo he was in, all dressed up as a handy man! This time he got all dressed up in my Jittery Joe’s kit, and got on my training bike, and we went for our first ride together in months. It was great! He couldn’t stop talking about how great all the Louis Garneau gear was (which is true), and loved riding the bike too!

Mum and Dad got their first Jittery Joe’s coffee experience during their visit, and i think ended up losing count of how much coffee they had after about twenty visits in the first day! Mum is one of those people who likes to have a latte just before bed! Below is a picture of the portable Jittery Joe’s Airstream caravan, which is a saving grace at many of the races we go to throughout Georgia! There is nothing like getting the best coffee available, anywhere we go!

I have started a bit of a “team mates shrine” in the apartment, gathering up various memorabilia with my good team mates on it. I still need the Willo and Shirl coffee cup sleeves, but i have managed to get a hold of something pretty cool; the David Villeux model pose! Check it out! Man, is he gonna cop it from everyone when we see him next! I reckon there might be a career for him doing this sort of thing, doesn’t he look pretty?! Sorry though ladies (and guys!), he has a girlfriend!

I have been trying to get a Willo cup sleeve, and asked for one the other day at the coffee shop, but apparently they were all out. The dude behind the counter made one for me though, complete with the blood on the face and all!

For those who didn’t know, Athens Twilight was a race of carnage really. There were pile ups everywhere on the dark circuit, and in the main one, Willo cut his eye open. He continued to race on to third place, the first time a Jittery Joe’s rider has been on the podium. He looked super bad-ass too, cos there was blood all over him and his face on the podium. The race, although having a good result for the team, couldn’t have been much worse, as we had four of our five riders go down in crashes, three breaking helmets, and unable to start the next day, and Jeff, tipped by many to be the favourite for the series, breaking his wrist, requiring surgery. Our thoughts are with Hop for a speedy recovery.

Well dudes, i might get some food, and get ready to race soon. Thanks for reading, and feel free to make heaps of comments!

I will hopefully get an update about the entire crit series out at the start of next week.

Laters dudes…