Thursday, October 12, 2006

Update from Down Under

So I know I haven't posted anything in a while. After returning from Europe I did a few races back home getting ready for the race I'm doing now, the Herald Sun Tour in Australia. Leading up to this race I visited the Velodrome down in Atlanta to put a little bit of speed in my legs and brush up on my track skills. It went well there cause I won the points race, miss-and-out, and the snowball race giving me the overall win for the night. The track is a lot of fun and should not be overlooked by any cyclist. Valuable skills can be learned on the track that you just can't get from riding on the road. Anyways, then I did the Final GA Cup weekend of racing. That was a good time seeing lots of people I haven't seen all year. I winded up getting second in the crit in Buckhead, which I was happy with cause I had been training lots getting ready for the long days ahead of me at the Sun Tour.
Here's a pic from the crit in Buckhead. Yeah, that's white ducktape on my shoe. The metal string that keeps the shoe tight broke on the second lap. I pulled into the pit and they taped me up. No sweat.














After about 25 hours of flying time, I arrived with my new team, Healthnet Presented by Maxxis, in Melbourne, Australia. The first stage was a crit and Menzies got in the break. He winded up 3rd, and Henderson won the bunch sprint for 7th. The next day Menzies and Obee got up the road in a group of 16 and put 30 minutes into the rest of us. Oh yeah Menzies won the stage so he was now the overall leader. So now the fun starts for us. Stage 3 was a long day for the team, we spent the whole day on the front, making sure the break away had no GC contenders and didn't gain too much time. Stage 4 was more of the same. Stage 5 we were on the front once again. But this stage had a 20k mountain top finish, so we basically just wanted to get Menzies and Obee to the base of the climb and let them do their thing. We hit the climb and the front group rode away immediately. I haven't seen the results yet, but I think Menzies is now around 5th place losing a little bit of time to some guys. Tomorrow's stage is an 11k TT with lots of turns. This will be good for our two GC guys. Then the final stage is an 80 min crit to finish it up. It's been great down here with my new team, and in this cool country. If you get the chance to come down under, you should. I got a some pics but forgot my cable so I have to wait to post them 'til I get back.