Team Presentation, then off to Georgia

Hey dudes, sorry i haven't posted an update for a while, have not had access to the net, and wanted to have some cool photos to post for you to look at.
After the initial cold snap in Michigan, things started to warm up to somewhat bearable temperatures, and i was able to start working on a much needed tan, before it got cold again two days later. I was able to take some good form to our team presentation which was good, as we got to ride about 500m while people watched! The presentation went really well, and it was a chance for Priority Health to show us off a bit. You can check out our team website which has now been launched at www.teampriorityhealth.com so you can see team stuff and read about all of our riders.
We have been able to get some decent rides in with the local guys, and in the above photo you can see the biggest bunch ride we have had from Bob's house. We do around four hours as a group and Bob is our sprinter, after beating me in our mini sprint series, so i have my work cut out keeping him out of the wind and pushing him up the hills to ensure he is in prime condition leading up to the sprints.
We have had an absolute ball staying at Bob's and i don't think we have stopped laughing until i had to leave and head to Georgia. Bob and Heather are so much fun, and have been great entertainers and hosts. I am already looking forward to getting back to Grand Rapids, and hopefully there will be a few more leaves on trees, and warmer weather next time. One of the other things that is hopefully going to be in better condition is the road surface. You can see here in the photo that we have a number of pot holes to contend with while out training. The roads can be quite vicious, and Thor Zirbel found out the hard way by suffering a puncture, and in the process dinged his rim.
Back to the team presentation. After the event, we had a group ride from Bob's (as you may have gathered, its our only meeting place) and I was talented enough to have a tumble in his driveway and tear myself up pretty good! After the ride we had a party at Bob's palace, and got a heap of team issue stuff, like polo shirts, t-shirts, fleeces, hoodies, and cap. The best thing though was trader cards with our photo and profile on them, and boy have they been a hit since. I think i have given out somewhere around 50 so far, and most of them have been signed, incuding my phone number on the back! We went out for dinner on Saturday night, and big Thor Zirbel wanted to see if he could catch a photo of myself handing out a trader card to any chicks. He was sure i wouldn't be able to pull it off, but i proved him wrong, and the accent, along with my personal "business cards" made it all too easy to win the bet with him! I was laughing so hard all night, and the girls started getting aggressive when the cards ran out...

After the weekend was over and Easter lunch was finally digesting, it was time for us to head down to Eddy "the body's" place on the Georgia-Tennesse border, so after an 11 hour drive we arrived in the warm weather and up in the hills - the first we have seen in a while. And Eddy lived up to his nick-name, he looks like he has been carved out of stone at the moment, and seems to have pretty good form.

It is good to be down here in the warm weather training hard, and hopefully the form will be good come the crit series in a week or so. I have some sharpening up to do, and will be looking good after the fortnight in the sun! The team will be looking to get some good results in the crit series after unfortunately missing out on a start in Tour of Georgia, so will be out to impress, and on a personal level i would love to be able to win one of the crits, and hopefully get up on the podium more than once. I am starting to feel strong, and once we get to Athens Twilight, it will have been more than a month of not racing, so i will be jumping out of my skin and raring to go. It has been frustrating not racing, but i have been slamming the K's in, and it has been making me hungry for success.

Here is a photo of our first training ride in Georgia, I included it because it looks cool, and shows the nice roads we are training on for the next week or so. It was a pretty talented shot by Thor while riding along, and i know the friends reading this back in Australia like looking at photos.

Hopefully this satisfies the Brentmeister as he has asked me to hurry up and post a new update, and I thank all of the people who have posted comments, as they are motivating to read, and it is nice to know that there are people who do read this! So feel free to do that.

That's all for tonight, i have an early start tomorrow, sort of, but i plan on posting another update in the next two days because i have more photos i would like to publish, and i want to show you the team bike too, for those who haven'e yet seen it, so happy reading folks, and check out the next update in a few days.

Stay cool dudes...