Fun times...

Since the last update, a lot has been going on, and all good stuff too.
Firstly, the team has posted its first NRC win of the year, with Thor Zirbel winning stage one of the Tour de Nez, upstaging all the big guns, and donning the leaders red jersey! Way to go Z-dawg! Tour de Nez was somewhat of a success for the team, and we were always prominent at the front end of the field. The race is held at altitude, about 6000 ft, and the highest we rode to was 7200 ft, making it close to the highest point in Australia! In the Truckee criterium for stage two of the tour, Zirbel was racing the crit of his life, and i was sure he would hold the leaders jersey after the stage, before his tyre blew out on a turn, sending him crashing out of the race. It is amazing how much skin he took off! Hopefully though, he decides to stay upright now, because he has crashed more times this year than anyone ever should, and also the wound care manufacturers machines are in overdrive to try and make enough bandages for him!
Robbie and I came in the top ten in the stage two crit, which was ok for me, and i feel like i am starting to find my legs again - just a few more good races and things will be going good! Truckee is this really cool hippy town, and after the race there was a feed put on for the riders, with a band playing. It was great how this small town got behind the race, and there wa a really good atmosphere and vibe around Truckee.
Glen, always happy to pose for a photo, is hacking into the post race food, while we sat in front of the local band, Frame of Mind. They were really good, and made me think we were at Woodstock or something - all the band had super-long hair, and long beards!

Stage three was a 108 mile road race which started in Tahoe City. Talk about an amazing place - this is one of the most spectacular places i have ever been to. The race was hard, but with the scenery on offer, it was hard to want to bail from the race! We did three laps of a circuit, with a 5 mile climb in it, and also rode along the side of Lake Tahoe, and along some really nice looking river. This was the most perfect back-drop for a race you could imagine - and the nearby mountains also had snow on them too.
This is Lake Tahoe, just down from the finish line, not bad huh? I think i want to live there.





One exciting event during the road race was when we were riding along the water front, a couple on a boat out in the water were keen spectators, and the blonde lady on board found it necessary to show us what she was all about - and she certainly got a heap of loud cheers from the whole peloton! Guess who was the first person to notice what she was doing and pointed it out to the bunch?!
The race was very hard, and by the last time up the climb, there were not too many riders left in the race. Big Thor decided he wanted to make amends for his tumble the night before, and won the bunch sprint into town for 5th place, again upstaging the more fancied big names. It was another great effort for him, especially to bounce back from the crash with a good result like that. Robbie and i also scored points in the omnium from the road race.
Stage four was the final stage, a criterium in downtown Reno. Reno is in Nevada, so there are casinos everywhere. They say Las Vegas is Reno on steroids, so it was good to get an idea of what Vegas might be like. The crit was very tough, and again the field was blown apart. We all stayed upright which was good, considering the number of crashes, and Robbie was able to take 4th in the stage, narrowly avoiding a big crash on the last corner.
Team Priority Health went well for the week, and Zirbel came 7th in GC, Robbie 11th, and get this, myself in 16th! Wicked! Lucky it was a points tour not a time one i guess, but none the less, a good sign i am returning to form.

A kiss of the mullet, that is the Thor Zirbel mullet, mad famous by the man himself, and a real honour for me to actually get that close to it.










Reno has this really nice river running through it, and we crossed this many times in the crit. The amazing thing was this river has man-made rapids in it, with gates to paddle through on a kyack. There a heaps of people paddling down the river all day, then carrying their kyack back upstream to do it again - in the middle of downtown Reno.


After the race was over, one of the sponsors put on a party at his cafe, and it was a really good night. There was a competition for the sexiest rider in the peloton, and while i am sure i would have won, I didn't bother staying around till the end. I thought it was only fair to the rest of the riders that i leave early to make it a fair competition!
The next morning was home to Grand Rapids, where i am now, and glad to be here, even though i am on the road again tomorrow morning again at 6 am! The flights to Reno and back are insane; 4 flights to get there, and 11 hours of flying/stop-over time, and a good run on the return flights meant only 3 flights and 9 hours!
Well that's all the racing news, in other news, after recovering from the long drive home to Grand Rapids from Philadelphia, I was able to have a quiet couple of days at Bob's before I had a couple of visitors.
First to arrive was this awesome hot chick from Athens, Keally (I know i am not supposed to say hot chick here, but it was a request from one!)! You may remember seeing her in a photo from a previous update, but if you don't, here is another photo.



We had heaps of fun, and it was great to be able to have a weekend up at Bob's beach house on Lake Michigan - pretty romantic huh?!
The other visitor was my good mate Ryan from Australia. He is here in the States for the motor car racing, where he works with Australia's Marcos Ambrose (a link to his site coming soon), who races in the trucks section of NASCAR for team Australia. It was great to be able to spend a couple of days with Ryan while we are on the other side of the world.
It's also nice to have someone around who makes me feel small!













This is Ryan's RV that he takes to all the NASCAR races, which he and Marcos's family stay in at the races - it's huge!

Keally was pretty impressed by Ryan and his energy, as those who know him understand what i am talking about. It was also good to be able to show Keally what a real Australian country boy is really like! It was a great week, and good way to refresh the mind. I don't know what i am getting myself into having a girlfriend, but i am sure it is going to be good, especially with a great chick like Keally!
Next on the cards for me is a thirteen hour drive tomorrow morning, beginning at six am, heading to Massachusetts for the Fitchburg Classic, made infamous to Aussies because of Henk Vogels' horrendous crash. It is going to be nice racing at sea level again, and hopefully the week at altitude has given me a boost! We have a good team going, and there are plenty of us in good form, so we will be looking to do well.

Laters dudes...

Blog Update

Ok, so this blog is out of whack a bit. The pictures below belong to the update just below these photos, so please read on and see the stories behind the pictures... The Amish horse and cart/cabin became less rare, by the end of the week there were more of these than cars!
The view out of the hotel window, pretty nice.
At the top of the famous steps Rocky runs up in the movie.
The hill was steep.
Very steep... No wonder it's called "The Wall".

Look at the size of the arms on the dude in green as he goes up the other KOM climb of the race, Lemon Hill. Good camera work Thor!

Sorry for the delay in updating the blog, I have a number of good excuses for that, although none come to mind right now!

I am just back from a couple of weeks racing in Virginia and Pennsylvania, doing some of the biggest races on the NRC. We started with the Captech Criterium in Richmond, Virginia, and the team only had one finisher (Robbie) in this really hard criterium. I didn't race CapTech due to restrictions on how many starters each team can put in, so watching was pretty tough.

The next race was in Arlington, Virginia, the CSC invitational criterium. Arlington is right next to Washington DC, and we were able to get a look at the Pentagon, the Washington Monument, and the Jefferson Memorial from the car on the way in. Unfortunately we had limited time while in Arlington, and didn't get to do the tourist thing and visit these famous places.

This young lady was taking photos of our team van with the bikes on the roof, and told us she was a cycling fan, so we gave her a signed team card - it would have made her day we reckon!

The CSC crit was a nightmare for Priority Health. Brentmeister General crashed out of the three man break he had been in for about forty laps, and couldn't continue, Eddy crashed on the same corner in a big pile up, and broke his pelvis, and Rich was in good shape in the closing laps and took a spill which required stitches in the chin.

After the race we drove to, yes, Intercourse, Pennsylvania! As you could imagine, the jokes never got old, well not for me anyway. Neighbouring towns of Intercourse were Paradise in one direction, an Blue Balls in the other, fair dinkum!

Intercourse and its surrounds are full of the Amish people, and they travel everywhere by horse and cart - quite amazing really (see pictures above in next post).

From Intercourse we raced in the Triple Crown of cycling, and first of these races was Lancaster. It was a very fast race, and very hard too. Reading was next, and replaces Trenton in the Triple Crown. This was a very fast and hard race, and by the end the field was decimated. Brentmeister was looking at a good result again in this race, but was taken out of the race when someone crashed into him in the last 5km. The final race of the series was Philadelphia, the longest race on the NRC. Philly is famous because up till this year has also been the USA national championship road race too. Philadelphia is a very nice city, and reminds me a lot of Melbourne, with similar looking old buildings, similar size, and is located on a big river like the Yarra.

The race itself was run along the side of the river on an out and back course, with the second half of the lap detouring from the river for three climbs. One of the climbs is the infamous "wall", and we had to ride up it ten times. It was incredible really. There was a race to the bottom of it each lap, and then over the top too. It was packed with thousands of screaming fans, and had a great atmosphere with music pumping - it certainly made the 18% grade ascent easier for us! I actually made it to the finishing circuits, where they pull you if you are not in the front bunch, so that was an accomplishment for me. Kiwi Glen and Brent made the front group, and Glen attacked at the finish, but was caught. Brentmeister was also looking at a good result, but was brought down in yet another crash, bringing his weekly tally to three, and this time he was looking at a top ten minimum, so that sucks, but he should be proud of being in the mix with just 200m to go.

After the race was over the Snake and i had to head back to Michigan, while the rest of the team headed to Canada. Its a bummer there is a limit on team numbers in races like that, and is really hard for both the riders and managment to call the shots on a squad for these races. We got back to Grand Rapids at 6am, so it was a pretty hard way to try and get some rest and recovery from Philly!

This week will be some training for me, getting ready for a couple of tours coming up, and trying to make up for what i will be missing out on from the Tour de Beauce the other guys are doing in Canada. It would have been great to race there for the experience, hard racing, and also because there are some of the Aussie boys over at the moment racing for SouthAustralia.com, so it would have been good to see them.

Ok, I have had trouble getting photos to work in this blog update, so the photos you see above are actually part of this blog.

I hope everyone is well, and feel free to leave comments, but don't criticise the photos being out of place...!

Stay cool dudes...