G’day everyone…
Well, i hope everyone, but i guess its only a few loyal readers! I have spent the last week up in Michigan, my home for 2006. It was so nice to get back up there, and when i first got there, it gave me a really warm, welcoming feeling, so that was nice. One thing i don’t really remember, was needing to have all my winter gear, of which i left most back in Georgia! No one told me it was going to be 50 degrees each day (near 10 Celsius)!

The weird thing about Michigan is the airport. Well, its probably not the only weird thing, and its not the only airport that is weird, but Detroit airport has this huge corridor, between concourses, and you walk (or use the travelator) along this tunnel, and the walls all change colour, and there is this really weird music going, and its really dark, so it was a bit freaky sort of, not really, but mainly just interesting, so i took a photo!

Last year i lived with my very close friend, Bob Hughes. He is one of the main sponsors behind Priority Health’s team, being the title sponsor of the team prior to PH taking over, and he had me live at his place for 2006. It was just the second time i have seen him this year, and he was the main reason i wanted to make the trip up North. It was great to see him and catch up again - Bob is one of the best guys you will ever meet!

One of the other main reasons i wanted to get back up to Michigan, was so i could get back up the the 45th Parallel, half way between the equator and the North Pole. Last time i was here, i was over the moon, and let me tell you, getting here again in 2007 was even better! The best thing about getting here this time, was that i got to be in the photo with the sign too! Wicked! I should say though, it is a LONG way from home in Oz!

We were lucky enough to stay with Dan and Kaye White, and their son Brad actually raced as a composite rider on our team for the Tour de Leelanau. Back in his day, Dan was a ripped muscle man. Here is a photo of a photo of him in his high school year book - have you ever seen a high-schooler with such big arms? They are HUGE! I am sure Dan will love this photo being on here too! I must say a huge thanks to Dan and Kaye for everything they did for us all week, it was appreciated!

Kaye has just started up a great little coffee shop in Lake Leelanau, called Pedaling Beans. It is a great little cafe, and you can get some great coffee (nearly as good as Jittery Joe’s!) there too! It is a great little spot to stop on a training ride up in North-Western MI, and has all sorts of cyclists needs too, like tubes, pumps, and other things to save cyclists who run into trouble!

Here is a coffee table inside the shop, with the legs made from old wheel rims, and the glass supported by old chain rings and sprockets! I am sure my grandfather would absolutley love this coffee shop. Other things made from old bike parts are: fruit bowls, bottle openers, key rings, and clocks!

Leland’s Fishtown in a quaint, historic little village. It is where the Tour de Leelanau began on Saturday, and is also home to the best sandwich in the world. This is definitely not an overstatement! The cheese shop in Fishtown is home to the $4.95 (tax incl.) sandwiches, which take an effort to finish! They are made on four choices of bread, with the pretzel bread being the best. I have photos of us eating them, but there were already enough photos on this post, and it was hard enough to choose the ones shown!

The Tour de Leelanau race was long and hard, again, like last year! We took just four riders to the race, and found ourselves a bit under-manned in the break. For Jittery Joe’s, Brad and i were in the main break, and Kelly and Priority each had five, so we got worked pretty good. Brad and i rode ourselves into the ground in the first 130km, and had nothing left in the end! It was good fun, and we left nothing behind, but it was a shame to miss the podium this year.

I don’t usually get many photos of myself racing, but luckily Brad, who is from this part of MI, knew just about everyone there, as either family members, or friends, so i was able to get some good shots from them afterwards. The photo below is going up the first KOM. It was a very cool day, as you might see with the vest and shoe covers!

Brad and i on the last KOM, a bit of a ways from the finish. As you can see, we have cracked pretty bad here, and our race for the win was over! The only cool thing is, we got a close up picture of ourselves, but that is definitely the only cool thing. We were suffering pretty hard!!!!

The race itself was in such a nice area, and i really think Michigan is underrated when it comes to the recognised beautiful states in the US. It really is amazing, especially the West Coast of MI, i would encourage anyone visiting the States to try and make a trip there if they can! How’s the serenity? So much serenity…!

Last year you might remember i got a great sunset photo while up in Leland. Well, i got about a thousand more this year! Unfortunately i had to choose just one, and this was it, taken from the dock out the back of Dan and Kaye’s. It is alright huh? Nice colours! i think i am going to print it off and put it in a frame.

The last night of our stay, there was a bit of a storm, and i was outside, talking to Keally, and i saw a big flash, then everything went black. At the end of the driveway, a tree had fallen down, onto a power line, and caused a black-out. It was pretty exciting that it happened so close to where we were staying, and we got to see all of the emergency workers getting all the power back on for all the houses. Pretty handy having a camera in my pocket at all times, as even though the photo is hard to see, it shows that the power line really did come down that night!

So that’s about it for my Michigan trip for 2007. I had a great time, and will be sure to return again in 2008. I am off racing for two weeks, but then will do my last race of the season in Trinidad and Tobago! It is going to be a blast, and great way to wind up the season.

Keep the comments rolling people, it is nice to read things from people, especially back in Australia, or people who i don’t see as much of here in the US. Also, if there is anything anyone wants me to write about, just let me know. I have a couple of weeks now with not much on, so i can do a post on here about anything anyone wants really! Let me know!

Laters y’all!

PS: The surface area of the Earth is 197,000,000 square miles.

Hello everyone! I have been pretty busy of late, catching up with my friends and stuff like that, which wouldn’t usually be a reason for lack of posts, but they were visiting from Australia, so i had to commit more time to them! James came back, after his trip around the States and South America, and brought our friend Chris with him this time. I hadn’t seen Chris for ages, although the three of us have been very close since we were five years old!

Here is a picture of us on our first communion, in 1991! Chris is on the left, James in the middle, and me on the right!

This is what we look like now, sixteen years on:

We had such a great time catching up, and it was as though we had never been away from each other on the opposite sides of the world! Funnily enough, their visit coincided with the first UGA Bulldogs football of the season, so the two of them got their first ever tailgating experience! It is crazy, for those of you who haven’t been tailgating before. This is the best i could show what it is like in just one photo, the thing is though, this is just a small section of North Campus of UGA, and it is like this everywhere within a mile of the ground, in all directions! It is basically bigger than the AFL grand final in Australia, and it is like this for every game of the season! No wonder college footballers think they are rockstars!

Here is the aftermath of the tailgate! Everyone leaves their picnic set-up, and heads into the ground to watch the game. They just lower their ‘easy-ups’, put all their stuff under them, and leave it all there, hoping nobody wanders through and takes anything. There are still some people who couldn’t get a ticket to the game, who sit around and watch the game on a 50 inch plasma screen they have brought down to campus, and a satellite dish too, so they can get reception for the TV!!!!

Ever since we have known each other, Chris has been a then WWF, now WWE wrestling fanatic. The coolest thing is, he is pursuing his dream of being a professional wrestler, and is about to begin a three month, intense training course specifically for the WWE! He will likely be Australia’s first ever WWE representative, and i wish him all the best in his dream to achieve that. You should see the arms on him! Here he is showing how to lift Tyler’s sister Julie above his head, before throwing her out of the ring (if they were in a wrestling ring that is)!

When we were in downtown Athens on game day, we saw some cops on bikes, so we asked them to pretend to arrest James so as we could get a photo of it. They were very kind, and didn’t hesitate to join in the fun! It would have been funny if a divvy van drove past or something, and thought James had done something wrong, and threw him in the back of it!

For the first time since we were about ten or something like that, the three of us were able to go for a ride together. It was pretty good fun, and we were able to get up to Jittery Joe’s and have a good coffee there. The cool thing here is, the last three photos have shown what the three of us do best; Chris with his wrestling, me with my cycling, and James getting arrested! haha!

My wonderful Mum sent me a cricket bat so i could teach Americans how to play cricket, even though i suck at it myself! It arrived in time for James and Chris and I to show some people how to play at a BBQ, so i am sure there will be many more fun times had with cricket games - it will probably make for a good tailgating activity! We got Keally to show us her style, so here it is:

Does anything look strange in the photo?! It is very funny to watch how someone who has never seen anyone play cricket, guess how the bat is meant to be held!

So that has been some of the fun things that has happened in the last couple of weeks for me. We raced the Atlanta 100k race last Monday, and started at 7 am, so that was not much fun. Hoppy came 6th in that, and then led us in the inaugural Tour Decatur pub crawl, of his hometown of Decatur. The flyer for the event was brilliant, including the planned stops, feed zones, and even an altitude/distance chart!

I am currently in Michigan, back up here to see all of my good friends i met last year. Bob Hughes, who i lived with last year, helped put on a great criterium in downtown Grand Rapids, and i raced up there on Saturday. The Priority Health boys definitely had the strength in numbers, but Menzies is just a machine, and rode away with the win. I probably lost my chance to win when i followed Kirk O’bee when he attacked with 6 to go, and we smashed ourselves till we got caught just after 2 to go. I got into the field, and was able to hang on for 6th, so that wasn’t too bad a result, it just would have been nice to podium in my home town of 2006!

Coming up this weekend, we have the Tour de Leelanau, and are spending the week up here in North-Western Michigan, by the water in a really nice host house. It is just amazing up here, and i really miss the Michigan coast! Last year i got 2nd in this race behind my team mate Eddy Hilger, so i hope i can go one better this time round! The other cool thing up here, is it is a few degrees cooler that Georgia; it is around 60 during the days here, as opposed to 90-100 down there, so the cool change is very nice - we even trained in leg warmers and jackets today! Wicked!

Well dudes, i hope everyone is doing well, and i will do my best to get some pictures up of the area we are in, up here in Leland, Michigan in the next few days.

Don’t forget to leave comments!

Laters… Wicked!