T town Omnium

This weekend i drove out to Pennsylvania with team mates Bennet, Hayden Godfrey and Joanna Godfrey. The events where, 1km scratch race, 12km points race, elimination with (42 riders) and a 5 km scratch. Hayden rode very well as always, Bennet and myself were made to realise you cannot just turn up without doing any track training and expect to beat up on people, but all the same had a lot of fun and gained a lot from the trip. I had a great weekend, and look forward to returning there again soon.

Weekend of local racing and misfortune

After getting back from racing out east, we are now back in Ohio. Last weekend we had 2 good local races. On the Saturday we had the Garrett Wonder memorial criterium which was on a 4 corner short circuit, Team Inferno dominated the race, with our lead out staying on the front all the way till the finish taking out 1st through 3rd with myself in second. it was a great days racing with an awesome result.
















Sunday, we had a troubling start to the day when shortly after being picked up in the team truck to head to the race, we managed to hit a dear at over 80km/h which seems to be a common practise in Ohio when you see all the deer lying on the side of the road when your out training. The deer managed to do enough damage that the truck was undriveable. After abandoning the car we managed to get a lift to the race from other team members. The race we were heading to was the Starbrick criterium in Nelsonville which 9 time Tour de France rider Frankie Andreau was announcing. It was a four corner 800m circuit that had the finishing straight of bricks, it was a fun day of racing dominated by team inferno again.

Team mate joe cooper did his best to save the deer but it wasnt too happen.

A successful weekend for all except the team car and deer, now i have a 2 week gap for training before my next race, tour of Ohio.

Tour de sommerville

This was my first ever big usa crit last year and it scared the heck out of me. It is a four corner 1km circuit with 228 starters, it was kayos i never looked back but there were a lot of crashes, it is one of the most dangerous races with such a big field. this year i got to start up the front of the race and that is where i remained till about 4 laps to go after working for the guys when my doors blew off as our team started the bunch lead out for the finish. coming into a couple of laps to go coltivita took over but Hayden godfrey ended up with an awesome result of 4th. the teams was very happy with how everyone rode and Hayden's result.
http://www.velonews.com/photo/76758
http://www.velonews.com/photo/76743
next race is ricola 2 days away

Bike jam 2008 NRC

First big race back was Bike jam in Maryland, this race was an NRC (national race calender) event. We had a full squad there it looked to be a tough day with a lot of the big teams showing up. the circuit was more like a circuit race then a crit. it was i a city park which meant there were no curbs but some tight corners, after my warm up i realised my legs were shot from the 6 hour drive down the night before, but as the race went on i actually felt better. i had a hard time with positioning and avoiding crashes but buy the time i started moving up it was far too late and far too fast i was pretty disappointed with my performance i need to lift my game. i ended up finishing round 40th of about 120 riders. team mate jeff hopkins finished 7th.
i have two more big crits this week, and am looking forward to them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVcwBgLneOI

http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos.php?id=/photos/2008/may08/bikejam08/080524-BikeJam-207

Back on the bike

I am now all healthy, I'm back on the bike and training is back in full swing. The weather around Columbus has been very disappointing and not what i was expecting compared to last year, when your out training and you can here tornado warnings that's not so good, haha.

I'm looking forward to my first race back, Tym Tyler's race at sugar grove this weekend should be a great challenge.

Riding on hold

Not so good news, I ended up missing the last two days of racing as i came down with strep throat. I tried to start the Charlotte race and fell to bits in the first 10 minutes. I am really gutted, its not what i need right now and its a shame to have not been in the helping the team in the races. I was stuck on the sideline doing the best i could on the radio, not that it probably helped much as the guys would have struggled to understand me with my accent and the rest of the commotion going on.

Over all the team did well, with Jeff Hopkins finishing the week off in third overall, Bennett 5th on the last day and the rest of the guys finishing in the top 20.

I have been assigned time off until completely better then its big miles getting ready for more USA Crit Series and Tour of Ohio.

Downtown Walterboro criterium

This race was pretty crazy it started in the dark and there were large sections of the coarse not lit up. it was a 80km crit on a 1 mile loop. i had a better start this time, but managed to get 2 consecutive punctures on the same hole on the course. i finished in 41st place, i had a bit more energy then i should have left but just couldn't get through the bubble then with 2 to go got caught behind a crash. I'm disappointed with this ride, still searching for a good result.

Beaufort crierium

This was the second race of the speedweek series, with 140 odd starters, on a very tight rough circuit. Of all the starters only 40 odd finished. I finished 35th it was a very hard ride. i felt my performance was ok but im still working towards better results.

next race tomorrow night

Athens twilight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMnKqq9xWJo

This was the biggest event of the speedweek series. The crowed reaches between 30 and 40 thousand all lining the streets of down town Athens. The race doesn't start till about 9 at night and finished close to 11. It is a 4 corner 1km circuit with a few rollers in it. we do 80 laps.




Because of my computrainer result i got to start front row behined the call up. It was chaos over 100 riders on the tight circuit. Most of the race i spent trying not to burn to many matches and slowly moving up, I never got to see the front of the race. All through the race riders were shelling off only about 50 riders finished, there were quite a few crashes which made things interesting but i managed to avoid them and not get caught waiting.

Coming into the last 12 laps i tried to start moving towards the front of the race, with about 5 laps to go and a few close calls i had moved up a big bunch of spaces but i started cramping up and the chaos in front of me wasn't giving any more opportunity's to get any closer to the front. I rolled in over the line in 29th position.

I was reasonably happy with my ride, i survived well. I know i have a lot better results in me so I'm looking forward to the rest of the week, my speed should start picking up a lot since this was my first full blowen crit since last season.

My next race starts on Tuesday night, cant wait...

computrainer test for athens twilight start grid

After our 10 hour drive down to Athens Georgia, we had to do a computrainer hilly 4mile tt, they had 8 trainers set up on a stage and ran heats all day, the top 8 times went through to the final that night. The time trial was to qualify your grid position for the start of the twilight race the following night. i ended up coming 15th and team mate Bennett qualified 3rd. In the final he managed to get 6th. It was a good start to the weekend and i am happy with how I'm feeling and looking forward to the start of the the twilight race.

Second win in as many days

This race was just west of Columbus, the weather was supposed to be cloudy with no rain, how wrong could it be. It poured down the whole race, i haven't been that cold since last season i was here.

The race was very flat, I had team mates Marco and Joe racing with me. The coarse was an exposed 100km 5 lap race. We started attacking the field early on, it took a while before the break went with Joe over a minute up the road by himself and then a chasing group of 5 with me in it. Joe had an awesome ride, holding the field off till 400m to go, which in all was 50km of the race he went solo. The chasing group was very inconsistent making it perfect for Joe to stay away. At one stage i was sure he would hold us off and take the win, but coming down to the last 10km the group took off. It came down to a bunch sprint that i took out with Joe rolling in 4Th.

Hopefully we don't have to do much more racing in the rain, nothing beats a day out in the sun on the bike.

First victory

Well this was my first race being properly settled into the states, it was a circuit race in Cleveland called round the lake, there was a strong field there with riders from Texas road house, RGF and team type one. I managed to get into the decisive break away with two Texas roadhouse riders and two RGF riders, I thought I basically had no chance without a team mate, but i worked hard and answered every attack until the finishing up hill sprint. I was very happy to have won this race it is a great way to start the season.

Back in the USA on the Infernoracing team

Well i made it in one peice after 30 hours of transit. I have my new bike kit which looks awesome. Will post photos soon. See infernoracing.org for a calender of the events the team is doing this season.