Hey there, here is a bit of an update, but there hasn’t been a whole lot happening here in Georgia, so i haven’t got too much to update on!

One new thing is that i am the proud owner of a scooter now! Mum and Dad got me this for my birthday, and here is Keally giving it a test run:

It is going to be great for training, and she can see some of the training rides i do now too. It is also going to be good to give me a mode of transport for when Keally is in class too. We have been pacing a fair bit, and i am finding my legs again pretty quickly. This will be the first year i am going to be able to consistently motor pace for training, and the first time behind a scooter/motorbike, so i am pretty excited that it is going to be a pretty successful year!

We have already had a fair bit of success this year, both the team, and me too! Last weekend we raced Perry-Roubaix stage race, a Georgia Cup race, with a time trial, kermesse (100km), and road race (which covers a few kilometers of gravel/clay each lap of a 160km race). Bobby Sweeting won the time trial for us, and Frank Travieso won the kermesse.
In the road race, I attacked with about 95km to go, and my good friend Bruno Langlois, racing for a different team, came with me. Seeing as we train together so much, and know each other so well, we worked really well together and amassed a huge lead. We had no time checks for the race, till about 15km to go, and by then we had the race won.
Bruno was a bit stronger than me, and showed that by riding off on the last little pinch of a climb before the finish to ride in solo just ahead of me. The craziest thing was how far we finished ahead of everyone; seven minutes to the chase group of 6 (lead in by my team mate Danny “lion tamer” Vaillancourt, and 19 minutes to the peloton!
It turned out to be a successful weekend for us, with two stage wins, 1-2-3 GC, and and the most aggressive classification. Even though i didn’t win the stage, i was happy to get second to my mate Bruno after we rode so well, and i did get 3rd in GC and won the Most Aggressive rider. Hopefully this early success will continue into the NRC races this year!

Here is our training group (we train together pretty much every day), and our placings in the Perry-Roubaix Classic! This is so cheesy, but here we are: Bruno (1st, middle), Danny the Lion Tamer (3rd, right), and me… hahahaha! You probably need to click on the photo to get the whole picture, and see Dan!

So a few people have been asking what we are riding this year, and here it is:

I am again riding a carbon Louis Garneau Sonix 6.4. This year it is fully decked out with Dura-Ace, and stem and post by Thomson, and bars by Kestrel. We are racing Kenda tires this year too. It is nice and smooth, and has stood up really well in the rough roads of Argentina, as well as on the gravel here in Georgia!
Our seat is a Selle SMP, and while it looks weird, i must say, it is great, i am loving it!
We are also fully clothed by Louis Garneau again, including their brand new shoes, and will be wearing Tifosi sunnies again. It is worth checking out the Tifosi link, because you will see a picture of me on the home page of the website! haha!

Check out this picture and see if you notice anything strange:

Can you see three guys in the back of the truck? Yes, there are three guys in the back! Keally and i were driving along the highway, and right in front of us, i thought i saw a pair of shoes. Then i realised the shoes were hanging out the end of a sleeping bag. Then the sleeping bag started moving. Then a guy stood up from the other end of the truck, from his couch, and walked over to the guy in the sleeping bag to show him the magazine he was reading! We then turned off the highway, but they were headed straight for Atlanta! I must say, it was one of the weirder things i have ever seen!

Fact: Coconuts kill about 150 people each year. That’s more than sharks.

Hope everyone is well, and you should see a new-look, updated site in the very near future!

Laters…

Here are some more photos from our trip to Argentina. They’re not in any particular order, but are pretty cool.

Here are the Andes from the aeroplane, heading to Mendoza from Santiago.

Here is the highest mountain in the Americas; Aconcagua. It is so high up, and when you see it, like in the photo, it looks pretty close by, but when you think about it, we are not even half way up here in this photo!

Here is our team waiting for the start of a stage. It looks pretty cool, maybe i should have changed it to black and white, or serpia or something to give it a classic look! Maybe i can fiddle around and put it up next post…!

For the start of stage eight, we were leaving for the race in the dark (which was quite an efforet after all the other stages finishing in the dark), and arrived at the start for this stunning sunrise…

Then turning in the other direction, we had this stunning view!

John Freddy Parra, our unbelievably strong Colombian team mate, shares a common interest with me, a love of cereal! He was a machine, at both racing, and eating cereal, and i thought this was worthy of a photo…

Paco, our great soigneur, entertainer, and poser, at it again, this time at the finish of stage eight, high up in the Andes…

… and this time while we were eating a roast dinner after the final day!

The race caravan was quite a sight; every team used a Mercedes Sprinter van! This is a bit different to what we are used to, which is all small cars so as we can see over the top of them!

The hotel we stayed at, Hotel Eben Ezer.

At times i thought i was back in Australia, with roundabouts…

… and gum trees!

After the last stage we were able to take a bit of a look around Mendoza, and see the sights. It is a very lively city, and there is always a lot going on around the streets. There was this dude there, fully painted in blue, who just stood there. Yep, he just stands. Interesting job hey. “So what do you do for work?” “Well, i colour myself blue, and stand…”
Pretty funny!

Also, when we were in Mendoza, all the traffic was held up, and we looked to see what the problem was. A tree branch had fallen on a passing car! Pretty scary. The driver was fine, and as we were there the emergency crew were in the process of cutting the branch up.

So there are a few photos from the trip. I hope they give a bit of an idea of what it was like down there. It was a very interesting experience, and very eye-opening.

A cockroach will live nine days without its head before it starves to death.