Tommy Nankervis

Road Trip

// September 3rd, 2008 // A Day Down Under

First of all i must apologise for the late update, i hope i still have all of my loyal readers! I got a bit worried when i saw i only had six comments, and i think two of those were the second time two people commented, asking me to hurry up with a post!

I have been doing a lot of time in the car lately, travelling between races, and have covered most of the USA i think! At the last post, i had been in Roanoke, Virginia, staying with Owen and his family. The trip there had been from Atlanta, via Charlotte and Winston-Salem, and i spent most of a week there. Next stop was in Rochester, New York. It is right up near Canada, on Lake Ontario. Rochester was a pretty cool place, and the races were really good. It was also great to catch up with some of my friends who i hadn’t seen in a long time, probably since Philly Week back in June.

After Rochester was done, Owen and i got a sweet rental car, a Chevrolet HHR for our trek across to Leroy, Ohio. It is basically a PT Cruiser look-alike:

It was pretty cool, and i must say, before we got that car i would never have known what it was. It was a great car for fitting all of our stuff in though, nice and spacious.

Here is another road sign that you probably wont find anywhere in Australia, a snowmobile sign!

Up in Rochester, Joey ate a massive burger at some hamburger joint. After you finish it, if you can, they take your photo and put it up on the wall. Joey was loving posing for the photo too!

This is what he ended up looking like the next day!

Can you believe that this pig was tied up in someone’s front yard, as a pet?

So Rochester is on Lake Ontario, and that means it is right up near Niagara Falls. The falls were somewhat on our way to Ohio, so we decided it was worth the little extra driving to see one of the more spectacular attractions of the continent. Owen had been there before, but i hadn’t, so it was great to have the opportunity to check it out. It also gave him the chance to see it from the US side, as last time he saw it from Canada’s side.

I figured i should get a cheesy photo in front of the falls, to make Mum happy:

I got another photo of it too, this time without me in it to ruin the shot!

It really is amazing seeing the massive amounts of water falling over the edge. It is just a continual ‘roar’. We didn’t stay around for too long, because it wasn’t changing much.

Jonathan, our team manager, told us that if he were to come with us, he would want to do the ‘barrel ride’. I had never heard of it, and neither had Owen, so we looked into it a bit at one of the tourist information centres, and found a few books, which contained these stories! Please click on it to see what you think about his ‘barrel ride’ idea!

So we made it across to Leroy, Ohio, to stay with a friend Jim Behrens, and his girlfriend Alice. They were fantastic hosts, and we got to do some good rides out there too. Luckily we rode with Jim each day, and we didn’t just have to do loops and out-and-back rides! There were a couple of cool coffee shops to stop off at too, so the week went by pretty quickly!

Next stop, Downer’s Grove, Illinois. USPro Criterium Championships, 2008. This race is one of the best on the calendar. It is on a great course, with a bit of a hill, lots of turns, and it is nice and open. It was a strange race this year, because there were only about 60 starters, as a lot of riders had headed out to the Tour of Utah. Our team rode pretty well, and the three of us ended up in the top twenty, so that was a reasonable day for us.

The minute the race finished, i jumped in the car with Lightnin’ Jeff Hopkins, and we headed for Georgia. We got down to Louisville, Kentucky that night, and stayed with Jeff’s mate Curtis. It was great to be able to stop over somewhere, instead of heading straight through that night.

With the stopover in Louisville, Curtis showed us some of his bow and arrow skills. Check out the bow, you could hardly even tell that is what he’s using:

He showed us some of the deer he’s got with it too. It’s pretty bad ass, the bow, but guns are more my thing! We had some good fun at the quick stop, it was just too bad we couldn’t stay for longer!

For what is a relatively boring drive, down to Georgia from Chicago area, we had a good time, and i even got to ride in a car with the coolest gear stick ever seen, check it out:

We also saw the new, fuel efficient way to travel with a bicycle on the Interstate:

So here is something that has been taking way too long for me to show everyone, my new DLP Racing team machines! Here is a look at my Jack Kane, K-Team Carbon road bike, with SRAM groupset:

It looks pretty sweet huh?

Check out this bad boy, my time trial rig. It is a sweet Jack Kane K-Carbon Chrono. Pretty bad ass to say the least, and the first time i have had a carbon time trial bike. I have done only a few time trials this season, and i am getting half-decent at them now. With a bike like this one, it makes it pretty motivating to get out there and practise at them more!

So there is a bit of an update for you, with a big bunch of pictures to look at! I hope i still have some people still reading this thing, so if you do still read it, make sure you leave a comment!

Twenty percent of the worlds freshwater lies in the Great Lakes, and most flows over Niagara Falls.