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...