Hey there everyone!

Long time no update! I have been very busy, and there has been so much going on lately, so i have heaps to report on.
I can probably start from where i left off, which was just hours before Keally’s arrival. I will give a brief run-down of the last month, then some pictures!
For a start, we just finished racing the Bay Criterium Series here in Victoria. It is a great way to start the year, and is the fastest criterium series in the world. There aren’t too many races you can do where you have World Champions, Olympic Champions, Tour jersey wearers and winners, Classics winners, and National Champions all in the same field! We have a great, and very successful cycling Nation here in Australia, and are very lucky to be able to be able to watch such great champions in our own city!

The team i rode for was De Tour, The Movie.com. We had a pretty star-studded team, including current National criterium champion and Tour de France Green Jersey winner Baden Cooke, Sun Tour and former National road Champion Matty Wilson, and two time British National Champion and Australian Championship winner Jeremy Hunt. Rounding out the numbers to bring our team to five was Nic Sanderson, and myself! It was a great experience to ride with these guys again, after racing the 2005 Sun Tour with them, and a great way to realise where i am at with my training!

I knew i was underdone leading into the series, and was not expecting to set the world on fire. I did hope to do well though. I have some good excuses, and i might as well mention them! I am not complaining, more just entertaining…

My first hold-up in training for 2008 was having a sun spot cut out of my head, near my hairline. The only thing i can say about this is, “don’t get sunburnt!” It really isn’t worth it. While i don’t chase the sun, it is hard to avoid in this sport, and i learnt the hard way that you need to do everything possible to avoid sunburn. The hold-up was having to avoid the wound getting too wet, and being one of the sweatiest guys i know, this made training limited. A week of not being able to build on form was quite frustrating, but also motivating to rip into the training once i had recovered.

So that brought on my second hold-up; Melbourne’s stormy weather. We haven’t had rain in ages, and it decided to dump right when i was able to start to train again! I was heading out each day anyway, and at times got absolutely drowned! It wasn’t too bad though, as the weather wasn’t all that cold.

The next hold-up i had was having a car door opened on me. Not good! Jonny and i were riding along on Christmas Eve, and someone decided they didn’t care too much for the door of their car. I was catapulted over the hangers and snapped my forks in half, landing on the ground. The most painful of my injuries was having my finger jammed between the handlebars and the edge of the car door… ouch!

Normally, a bike doesn’t look like this!

The next two hours after the crash were spent standing around, in my soaking wet clothes, getting details from the driver, and trying to get a new bike sorted out so i could keep riding. The standing around getting cold caused me to get a bit of the flu, so i was not feeling the best for a few days - too down to do a blog update!

I came good the day of the first Bay Crit, so i was, and still am in good health, but i just feel like i am a few K’s down from where i want to be at this time of year. It should work well, as it will mean i can be even more motivated when i return to the US, but it would have been nice to get a good result in the Bay Crits!
I must give a huge thanks to Bill and the guys at Fitzroy Cycles. They worked tirelessly to ensure i wasn’t without a bike, and stayed back late on Christmas Eve just to get me sorted out. Thanks guys!

So that is what is going on with the cycling part of my life. Nationals are on this weekend, and will be super hard! I hope to hang in there for as long as possible, and who knows, maybe surprise myself! It is not a course too well suited to me, so we’ll see…

The other very exciting thing over Christmas, aside from Christmas of course, was Keally’s visit! We didn’t get anywhere near enough time together, but at least we did get to spend the Christmas period together. There are so many great things i wanted to show her, but we only got to do a few of them.

At least she got to see a kangaroo (well, a wallaby, but they are similar enough)!

The cool thing was, they were in the wild, down at Phillip Island. It is always better to see things in their natural habitat, rather than in a zoo or something.

We tried to go to the Penguin Parade too, but unfortunately there were no tickets left, so we went for a walk out to The Nobbies (and the Blowhole)…

… in the hope that we might find some. We were lucky, and got to see a few, including one looking after her babies or something like that. The other cool thing was to see a couple of them hiding under the boardwalk:

It started to get pretty windy and wild, and it started to rain, so it seemed like they were hiding from the weather. I was able to lean under the boardwalk and get this cool photo of them, which was great, because they say you aren’t allowed to take photographs of penguins using a flash. On the way back to the car, we saw a huge wall of rain heading across the water right for us. It absolutely pissed down, and in about 20 seconds, we got drenched, to the point where we needed to change clothes!

We also got to go and have a barbeque up on top of Mount Dandenong, and get a good view of Melbourne. Too bad it was a pretty smoggy day, but it is still an amazing, unobstructed view of Melbourne. It was pretty funny, because i thought i was all organised getting the food and drinks ready for the barbeque, and when we got there, Lisa, my sister, asked how we planned on flipping the hamburgers when they were ready to turn over! I found some pretty good sticks… Really, they were good!

There is a Giant’s Chair up on top of Mount Dandenong. Weird, i know. It still makes for a good blog photo. Did you know, it isn’t as big as the World’s tallest office chair, in Anniston, Alabama, which stands at 31 feet?

We got to see a bad ass sunset down at Phillip Island too. This one was down at Red Rocks beach, just near our holiday house. The significance of this photo is… It happens to be the place where i proposed to Keally!

This will sound pretty corny, but Keally means the whole world to me, and i can’t think of too many people who are lucky enough to marry their best friend. Luckily for me, and Keally too (i hope,) on our wedding day, that will be true for us!
We are both so excited, and i can’t think of anyone who i would rather spend the rest of my life with. Here is a photo of us, with Keally showing off her ring!

So that is it for a long overdue update on things! Sorry it took so long, i have been slack, and busy! Well, busy, and slack. At least it is up now, and i can get back into a routine of updating regularly. I am back in training now, and there is a lot of stuff beginning to happen, so i will have plenty to write about. I need to get the camera out a bit more too, it has taken a bit of a holiday lately!

Anyway dudes, thanks for reading, and i hope i haven’t lost too many of my loyal readers with my laziness!