Once again I find myself at another AIS cycling camp in our nations capital and this time there’s more than one strange twist. This time instead of sharing `ressie’s’ with the many strangely shaped athletes like 60 wrestlers (thank goodness!!), 20 mini gymnasts (a little scary too!) and heaps of long and lanky basket ballers. We cycling girls now find ourselves living all the way over at the physiology labs sleeping at 3000 meters in the altitude house.

The BOC altitude house’s slogan is `to live high and train low’ and that’s how we spent 2.5 weeks at the first AIS training camp for 2008. Sleeping at altitude is done in hope of increasing haemoglobin mass, which should effectively improve performance. I was looking forward to this part, however, on reading some of the fine print of the side effects or symptoms I was a little apprehensive.

This fine print included:

• headaches
• dizziness
• nausea
• shortness of breath
• persistent coughing
• chest pain
• abdominal pain

In the first two nights at altitude I experienced

• lack of sleep
• shortness of breath,

And from then on I also experienced the following:

• lack of sleep
• shortness of breath
• sore ears from wearing ear plugs to escape the loud/heavy squeaky doors which opened and then slammed all night and the squeaky bunk bed
• more lack of sleep from the more frequent bathroom visits you seem to need
• and a sore left hand pointer finger from wearing the pulseometer.

However after many sleepless nights we were able to take the pulseometer off and I smarted up and got the Rock n’ Roll chain lube out and spent the next 20 minutes lubing every single hinge in the altitude house. We also got the `friendly’ lab supervisor to tighten the screws on our bunk bed and that night I experienced my first night of relatively quiet sleep. Good stuff….

During the days we spent our time training hard on the road and testing on the bike and in the lab. We did many TT efforts and my favourite was the 30 min TT effort in the lab with a very uncomfortable saddle. I had good power but I’d pay for the saddle for several days after…. Oww! We also spent many hours in the gym impressing Ross our Strength and Conditioning supervisor with our strong muscles and great control. He he!!

As well as all the 'sport stuff’ I managed to escape the confines of the institute and altitude house several times with my friend Bella who was `doing time’ at the institute as a triathlete. We visited the Tasmania Devils and Llamas at the Canberra Zoo, caught a movie and ate some prawn skewers (Spain) and sausages (Austria) at the international food festival. We also busted out a few times for secret breakfast clubs at our favourite Canberra cafe `Milk and Honey’ and nearly broke our ankles walking with cleats on the floorboards and stairs. I’m sure we kept a few Canberrians amused with our little stunts there! But we really meant to do that!

At the start of the year I had seen the Canadian race stint on some of the other girls program thinking how I’d like it to be included in my calendar and somehow feeling that I’d end up there anyway.  So it was no surprise when I was offered a spot for the Canadian races, my instincts were telling me it was thing to do. So off I trotted to Canada. 

During the Canadian races the AIS team was unlucky enough to be introduced to a peloton, which included the Cuban National Team who we had never raced or even seen before!!!!  Yup, scary stuff and when you put these girls in with the Russian National Team you’re bound to see fireworks!  In a nutshell the Cubans ride like they own the roads and rule the peloton and they love to disrespectfully chop every other rider to pieces to get where they want to go.  This of course meant there were some really sketchy times and it caused no end of fights and abuse and some really close calls with the bitumen. 

On nearly every day of racing, the Cubans would get into some sort of fight, usually with the Russians and more than once it finished with girls from either country slapping and hitting each other somewhere within the peloton.  In these instances the Cubans would look directly across at the Russians, swing their arms all around the place slapping the Russians.  While this was happening the rest of the field would be cringing and holding their breath to see if the Cuban, who was not looking were she was riding would fall or ride into the wheel in front.  There were a few close calls but the Cubans always managed to stay upright by leaning, like crazy, on the rider next to them or by doing some sort of mental swervey manoeuvre to stay upright herself but cause no end of chaos behind!  They were nutters both on and off the bikes! 

At dinner they would eat like an army, get three deserts and take home packs as well.  They pushed into dinner line ups but when they took on Carla Ryan and myself one night in the desert line we couldn’t hold back.   Every day these Cubans pushily stole wheels from everyone but enough was enough, as the Cuban tried to jump the dessert line, I moved my body to block out the Cuban and said  `this is desert we’re talking about here Cuban! You can have the wheel in bike races (cause I’m scared you’ll bring me down) but not desert!’  Yup, I put her in her place!

Canada ended up being a good call for my racing as I continued to improve and have strong racing till the end.  In our last tour, Tour de Prince Edward Island, the racing was aggressive and encouragingly breaks were lasting.  I covered attacks, made attacks until finally in the second last stage, a 96.5k road race, I bridged a gap to a solo Russian.  At this stage there was 3 k to go, I was 9^th on GC* and quite close behind  to the 8^th placed rider.  A time gap would work well for me and a 1st or 2nd placing would be even better.  I made it to the Russian fairly quickly and we worked together for the final 3k.  She used me up in the last kilometre but I slowed a little to recover towards the end.  Luckily the Russian sprinted a little early into a big head wind and I managed to sit in a little and jump over her at the last second for my first ever international win!

It felt great! 

*General Classification

After Holland we travelled to Belgium where we’d spend the next ten days recovering and training before Fleche Wallone, another `classic’ race on the calendar.  We arrived at our new accommodation in the pitch dark and were horrified to find it atop a big berg along a 1.5 km long, rough dirt road.  Yes, we were not to be done with the rough roads just yet and once again my butt wasn’t going to appreciate this one!

So while most of my body (!) was given a much needed rest it seems my mind would not. I was looking at the ten day race break with a little apprehension.  Ten days off competition meant recovery rides after the Dutch races, some solid training days in between some more easy days prior to Fleche.  It meant a fair bit of recovery and since it looked like we were in the middle of nowhere, it appeared there would be nothing much to do.   Time to get home sick!!!

Fortunately, though, the next ten days proved to be pretty awesome.  We spent some quality time exploring Huy, which is the town where Fleche Wallone finishes. We somehow stumbled upon every single chocolate shop in the place (who would have thought)! Even though we were thoroughly impressed by the chocolate shops, Huy also housed many other attractions to explore. We went through the scary fort overlooking Huy, checked out the town’s gothic cathedral and spent some quality time at the cafés in the main square.  One of the great things about Belgium, apart from the chocolate, is definitely the beer and I have to admit that I did try a few of their fruit beers including raspberry and cherry beer. Cherry (Kreik) beer came out as the winner and if you ever find yourself in Belgium the Kriek beer is definitely worth sampling!

During our time in Belgium we also took a day trip to Brugg, a really old and beautiful city on the west side of Belgium. On the way home, we also briefly dropped in to Brussels for a quick bit of power shopping. Awesome shopping!!!  Amongst all of this I also spent spare time during our ten days off by reading, messing around on the computer, and watching DVD’s.  It all sounds very nice and it certainly was as we were barracked up in a large family holiday house in the hills.  We cooked some great meals with the supervision of our soignney (Soignneur) and temporary mother Berthy (Berty) while our coach Dave Short and mechanic Stew made sure we had a toasty fires to keep the house warm and roast our marshmallows on each night!

Race day came around quickly and all of a sudden we found ourselves going through the normal pre race routine.  Sign on, line up at the start for a half hour and then the gun goes off.  The race started in a rather relaxed fashion and I found it was a lot easier to move around the packs compared to the Dutch races. Fleche Wallone is an awesome race as the course is happening from the start. Riders are constantly climbing, descending, cornering and weaving in and out of towns throughout the Wallone region of Belgium.  There is always something going down on the course so the 105km is especially quick. Fleche is a strange race as it’s shorter than most and while the terrain appears relatively ok I think it is actually a lot harder than initially expected.  It drains your legs and for most riders it jumps up to bite you at some stage.  It certainly seemed to bite me and take a big chunk, as after 75k I found myself blowing to pieces on the third last climb. 

After exploding to pieces somewhere in Wallone I found myself in the second pack and pedalled the remaining 30 k before coming upon the talked up Mur de Huy, the famous climb Fleche Wallone finishes on each year (not as bad as Mt O’Reilly Brisbanites!!!).

 The Huy is around 1km long and its most vicious part is around halfway up when you go through a step left and then right hand turn.  It’s easiest to stick to the longest line through the corners and once this section is completed the Huy keeps climbing for a much longer draggier section.  A lot of riders start this climb a little quick but generally blow up just past the turns.  It’s best to restrain yourself and conserve energy, as there’s more time to be gained or lost in the second section of the climb.  The Huy is great to ride up. Not only is it a legendary climb but on race there was a huge crowd lining the entire climb.  Everyone is drinking beer and cheering you on as you struggle up the climb and no doubt pull all sorts of faces!  Luckily they’ve got their beer goggles on!

Great news from Canada with "ourJosie" taking out the 4th stage of the inaugural Tour de Prince Edward Island. Featuring a big field of international pro women racers including Italians, Russians, Swiss etc this race is new to the calender, designed to follow the Montreal World Cup race held the week before. Josie had been showing great form earlier in the race taking a top ten in the time trial stage finishing a few seconds ahead of Sarah Carrigan, Olympic champion.

 In the 4th stage after numerous attacks Josie bridged the gap to one of the Russian national team members and outkicked her in the finishing sprint to take out her first international road race victory. At the end of the Tour Josie finished 7th overall which is a great result and a great way to finish the first 1/2 of the year. Josie returns to Brisbane this week for some well earned R&R before heading back for the rest of the season including the Thüringen-Rundfahrt in Germany and world championships in Stuggart at the end of September.

I guess when I started cycling I never knew where it would all end up. It was a simple case of training a day at a time for the next competition and things snowballing quickly from there.  I can't really blame Blair for not warning me that rodeo riding would be a damned good pre requisite to cycling, but in hindsight it would have been good! Not until arriving in Holland did I regret not having a few more rides of those mechanical bulls at parties or the Ekka, just to get me a little more used to being thrown around like a rag doll. Something would have been better than nothing!  But I guess no one tells you everything and some things you just have to figure things out for yourself.

In Holland I competed in three races each of around 130 k over four days and I learnt pretty quickly that not having a bull riding past would be a definite disadvantage. The race maps indicated we would be cycling over several, 2-3 kms of cobbles but I don't think I'd really call these cobbles.  I'd call it something a little more like MTB tracks, grass, rocks, dirt, dust.everything you would find in what would generally be termed as an off road trail.  We traversed these paths with our dura ace race wheels and others had all sorts of carbon deep rimmed wheels probably costing around $3000 a pair.  It was craziness and what was even more crazy was the number of flats riders suffered during these off road sections. Every cobbled section was littered with riders just standing and waiting to get spares from their team vehicle.The three races ended up being pretty cool and once you washed the dirt off your face, blew the mud from your nose, rinsed and spat a few times and picked the soil from your eyes things looked even better. It's amazing how time heals all wounds!  They were all tough days in the saddle for any experienced cowgirl. Tough winds meant we were all single file in the gutter and having to jump over tiring riders all day.

Another great thing about Holland was the hotel our team scored during the racing period, or more to the point the breakfast the hotel supplied for us during the racing period. It was amazing!!!  There was everything you could possibly want and more but the best thing about the breakfast was the bread we re-named `golden bread.  And golden it was as this bread was some sort of sugary, cinnamon like delight. Once toasted with lashing of butter on top was the best thing EVER!!  Needless to say this bread was devoured quickly and the hotel caught on quick smart that they needed to supply a whole basket of this golden bread as the normal half a basket just wasn't cutting it.

Since the racing in Holland is over and I am now back in Belgium there is no more golden bread. Psychologically this is completely devastating but I don't think my body agrees. Too much more of the old golden bread and three weeks later on my return to Oz I'd be smuggling a spare tyre or two through customs!  Not a nice look for a cyclist! The other thing is that in the pursuit of toasting the perfect golden bread, things were getting a little dangerous and looked to be heading down the road to my self destruction.  On my last morning of golden bread gluttony I found an especially juicy looking piece and jammed it in the toaster while I stood waiting in anticipation of just how good this one was going to be.  Unfortunately, once the toaster popped up my piece of toast did not as it was stuck deep in the clutches of the toaster.   I had to crawl under the table, unplug the toaster and set to work on it with a knife, levering my sweet golden bread out.  Luckily, after much persistence, and somehow not getting myself electrocuted in the process, my sweet golden bread came out but was in all sorts of bits and pieces. To the golden bread's credit he tasted just as good as ever and I lived to see another day in the saddle ridin' the bulls.

Pre Race it was 2.5 degrees but warmed up nicely!

We rode the last 30km of the Tour of Flanders course the day before the race itself. As soon as I got on the overly crowded roads I knew it would be a race to remember.   More than 25,000 cyclists ride the 220km mens course on the Saturday over hills, down single track roads and over sections of cobbles up to 3km long.  There are bergs (hill climbs) scattered all through the course including the dreaded Murr, which is a steep single track cobbled climb where race fields are known to be obliterated in seconds. Cycling over the finsh section of the course gave us a good idea of what the race would be like the next day and I liked what I saw!

We arrived at the race start at 9:30am in a foggy and chilly morning of 2.5 degrees.  We kitted up for our race and went to the team presentation and sign on to get introduced in front of a big crowd and loads of photographers.  After presentation the 170 starters gathered at the start and waited for the gun to go.

The race was on from the beginning and lots of breaks and loads of huge efforts out of the slow corners were necessary to keep up.  You needed to lock up the brakes at the last minutes approching corners. Then you had to use apply full effort to keep your position or gain a few bikes lengths if girls in front took a moment longer to get up to speed.  It was a crazy start and you needed to be extremely focused and a bit of luck to stay out of crashes. After around 30 k we got to the first section of cobbles which was around 2km long.  It was then that I realised just how hard it is to ride on cobbles over long distances. I wondered about my sanity when I claimed a few weeks before how much I would love to ride over the course of Paris Roubaix where the riders travel over more than 50km of cobbles over the course of the race.  I honestly don't know how they do it.

To ride cobbles you choose a big gear and sit back a little more on your saddle.  You grind over the cobbles while your body is literally being shaken to bits and your butt jumps up and down on the saddle.   I always thought riding cobbles was pretty ordinary but riding two or three k's of them at a time is something else.  No one ever told me of the extreme pain you feel in your hands and how you can barely keep hold onto the handle bars. You expect your hands will just shake right off and you'll be on the ground in no time. While riding you look ahead and hope for smooth road. Once you find it,your legs feel heavy but your bike is floating.  You have claws for hands because you can't even open your fingers for some time. Though I've never had arthritis it seems to be the only thing I could think to compare it to!  It's so painful.

After finishing the cobble sections we came upon the mighty Murr and the field split to pieces as girls dropped wheels up and down the climb. Not long after the Murr we climbed up the long cobbled drag of the Bosberg, which was another painful experience. After that punishment I ended up being in the second pack and waited it out a little for an opportune time to try for a break away to bridge packs.  I got away with an Italian rider and we managed to swap off for 3-4k and bring in the front pack a little before we were caught from behind.  In the last 5 k I sat within the pack and then finished 38th, and around 30 seconds behind the first finishers.  I was a little disappointed in 38th but to place that well in my first Flanders, a classic race in the history of cycling is probably not so bad.

After the women's finish we hung around for the finish of the men's race which was great because it was huge!  I had thought the spectators on the course and at the finish were pretty decent for the women's race but I was knocked out when busloads of people started getting dropped off around 30mins from the finish of the men's.  The place was super crowded and the air electrifying as we saw the nail biting, two man lead keep a 12 man pack at bay for a two man sprint finish between the Italian, Allessandro Ballan and Belgium's own Leif Hoste.  Ballan finished as the top man and it was an exciting and inspiring time. We all watched grinning from ear to ear.

While it was an awesome experience it also brought a lot of truths home for us women.  We would have had under 1/20th of the crowd at our finish and that night on TV we watch for some time as they talked about the men's race and it's winner and the women's race or winner Nicole Cooke did not even get a mention.

Mens Sprint Finish

It’s hard to believe I’m once again back in Italy in the AIS team house. It feels as if I only left yesterday and the only real give away that it wasn’t just yesterday is the vast difference in the seasons. When I was here last June it was sunny and hot and we were complaining of not being able to sleep in our rooms at night as they were like saunas. This time round we have the heaters on, are sleeping under doonas at night and during the day are riding in our cold kit.

Every morning we head out for a ride at around 9am and have to spend about 20 minutes kitting up. Most mornings I wear an undershirt, jersey, arm warmers, fleece long sleeve top, vest, leg warmers, thick socks, shoe covers, long finger gloves and ear warmers. After putting all this gear on we finally roll out and pretty much manage to stay warm for the rest of the days ride depending on whether it’s 7 or 10 degrees. Pretty cold for a brissy girl! If you head up a climb you generally end up sweating and hot, then coming down the climb you once again end up cold as you have a wet shirt on your back and the wind in your face!

It’s still great riding though and it’s amazing how different things look compared to last summer. The trees are mostly bald with some of the early flowers like tulips, starting to pop out. The days tend to be a little more grey and foggy. If you’re lucky enough to get a really clear day you can see some of the near by mountaintops covered in snow which is really pretty.

After three or four days of being in Italy we had our first day race. Cittiglio was a tough 8 lap course of 15km with 160 starters. Things got off to a good start and the race was fast from the beginning.

There were two short but tough climbs in the race and two solid downhills. The course was made especially tough as you needed to have good positioning to make the front pack as riders were popping and losing wheels all over the shop. Apparently my positioning wasn’t quite good enough when on the final lap, we were strung out and a rider around 8 wheels up lost a wheel and a whole bunch of girls were dropped from the front. I was with this group who lost around 50 meters in the space of 1 second.

It was a good but harsh lesson about just how quickly you can lose touch with a pack, making your race all over. After the race we came home and went out for a pizza and ate a crostada that I made the morning of the race. Crostada is a sort of Italian jam pie and it’s pretty tasty if you get it right. Unfortunately my Italian is pretty non existent so I didn’t know which flour to buy and we didn’t have measuring cups or scales so the crostada was a little slapped together. It seemed to turn out ok though, so we got into the spirit of Italian food and celebrated after the completion of our first race. After another couple of days training and living in Italy we’re heading off to Belgium for three weeks and around 4-5 races. It should be a tough time as we compete in some of the most famous `classic’ cycling races such as Flanders and Fleche Wallone.

Crostada – Yum.

If you call yourself a true cyclist then you’ll probably find you have some sort of obsession with socks.  I’ve had this discussion with a few cycling mates and the obsession differs in many ways but it’s always there lurking just under the surface ready to pop out in some scary form. Cycling sock obsessions range from the need to co-ordinate socks with every piece of clothing or equipment, to the more severe obsession of needing to name and number each sock so they’ll identically match after each wash.! It’s a bad day when a cyclist loses a sock or the pure whiteness of the sock is ruined during washing and comes out grey.  However, cycling is all about image and real white cycling socks around 2 – 5  inches above the shoe (AND NO MORE) seem to be the only way to go.

****************************

After escaping the confines of the Institute I found myself in Geelong, Victoria with the rest of the AIS girls. Here we’d compete in our first tour together amidst much discussion, conversation and bitching all over the subject of the humble sock.

On the morning of the first day of the tour we had an 8km prologue to complete followed by a criterium in the afternoon.  The entire double stage day was at Port Arlington surrounded by gale force winds and the wrath of a few of the women `profies’ (girls- or guys – in the professional cycling teams).  It seems a few of the `profies’ from a particular pink team were pretty put out and offended by the sock length of a few of the Queensland cyclists!!!

These `profies’ didn’t hold back their opinions of the sock length greater than 5 inches from the top of the cycling shoes and asked us to have words with one of the offending Queensland cyclists. Other comments made on the `sock issue’ even prompted one of my team mates, Nikki Egyed, to do an emergency cycling store stop to purchase more suitable socks for the next few stages of the tour.  You can’t upset a cycling `profie’ as you never know when you may need their assistance or friendship in the future, so my team mate really didn’t seem to like my advice to `buy some even longer socks and see what happens!’

We all set off for day two of the tour, including Nikki with her more appropriate socks, to complete the Lara to Lara road race stage.  The 80km stage really only included one climb however this hill was known as `the wall’ and totally lived up to its name.  Today’s ride was the first official road stage and there was excitement from the beginning. Girls crashed everywhere and someone even lost a seat until finally things settled down. Then Queensland Academy of Sports (QAS) rider and friend Louie said `it’s so nice now everything has settled down and some of the bunters* are out the back’.  Soon after that comment a girl lost her chain and another girl attempted to push her along to give her momentum and dropped herself in the process.  The world went in slow motion for me for a few seconds and girls fell until I found myself sailing through the air to land on a couple of bikes and riders.  Amazingly enough I jumped back up with no scratches and only a few bruises, I pulled bent levers out to a more rider friendly position, put my chain back on and kept cycling.  By that stage, on a windy day, I was left to ride the remaining k’s with Louie and my AIS team mate Jen McPherson.   Louie had come out of the crash with a bunch of scratches and was covered in mud but finished the stage feeling pretty superstitious, saying, “we’d never make another `bunter’ comment like that again”.

The tour finished on day three with an 80k stage at Barwon Heads where there was more trouble through crashes.  The field split several times. In the front pack myself and Amanda Spratt and later Nikki Egyed were called back to assist our team mate, and young riders jersey holder, Kate Nichols to help get her back to the lead.  It was an awesome team effort by AIS, to tow, unassisted, a large group of riders within 20 seconds of the first pack but unfortunately we still didn’t make it and lost our jersey.  It was however, great to see the poor form of the sit in riders in the second pack who actually rode, or sprinted past us to gain, maybe 30th position in stage 4….NOT!!!! 

Anyhow, bitterness aside, it seems that after the Geelong women’s tour some of the more `amateur’ riders in the pack who had the audacity to wear inappropriate socks are now put right in their ways of cycling accessorising.  Never again should we see socks greater than 5 inches past the shoe and hopefully these rules will help to reveal more sock obsessions throughout the world of cycling.

*NB: I am happy to report that the Lifecycle socks seem to be loved by many and accepted into the peleton with open arms.  Breath easy knowing you are officially `cool’ in the cycling world for owning these socks, and that I am actually under orders to bring several pairs over to Europe this year for some of the SA.com riders.

*Bunter – a below average cyclist

I’d watched the hit 80’s cycling film `American Flyers’ several times before I took off for my first AIS camp for 2007. So as you can imagine I was totally pumped at the prospect of heading off to a sports academy possibly similar to the one in my favourite movies of all time. On the flight down to Canberra I was dreaming of hanging out with a bunch of top level athletes in gyms, wearing sweat bands, knee length socks and experiencing 70’s and 80’s sports psych of being screamed at to go faster and harder in training, and to lose more weight…. the only real shame was the 80’s have long gone so I couldn’t look forward to athletes in fluorescent lycra aerobics wear and I definitely had no chance of seeing Kevin Costner riding a bike and/or sporting a huge 80’s Mo (moustache). My only hope of that was if a fellow athlete in the AIS accommodation happened to have a copy of `Dances with wolves’ on them.

Life at the Institute, much like `American Flyers’ is never boring. Actually that’s not quite true, life within women’s cycling is never boring while life at the Institute is actually ridiculously boring. The Institute is found in the middle of what appears to be either a lunar landscape, or a desert, it’s hard to escape and you feel like you’re in your own personal reality show or a test tube. Either way it feels like someone is always watching and at any moment some professional lurking in the bushes would love to jump out and stick a needle in your ear lobe or finger to draw blood for another test. Funnily enough it’s hard to totally relax around the Institute.

During the week we had appointments with doctors, psychologists, nutritionists, bio mechanic’s, Coach’s, ASADA (Australia Sports Anti Doping Authority) , sports scientists and stacks of other appointments which I just can’t remember. I spent most of the week clocking up miles walking to these appointments, which was lucky as there wasn’t much time to clock up many miles on the bike.

My dream come true!!! *This photo may have been re touched by Kimble Huch.

One of the nights when I did actually manage to clock up some miles on the bike with my fellow AIS cycling buddies, we all returned to our temporary homes at the Institute to be greeted by some random people from the search and seizure part of ASADA. For the next 3 hours our rooms were searched with a fine tooth comb and nothing was left untouched or unturned. We felt like common criminals…excited, terrified, embarrassed and helpless all at once! The search and seizure guys lifted and felt around couches and every other piece of furniture in the apartment. They pawed through our dirty washing, underwear, and tampon disposal units all in the name of catching drug cheats. It was a weird experience because as an athlete you never really want to race a drug cheat so you have to accept these deterrent and capture methods, though you can’t help but feel that these measures are brought in simply because the urine and blood testing done is simply not good enough to catch the real cheats.

Oh well…. at the end of the day you choose to ride and therefore have no choice but to accept all that goes with it. On a positive note it makes our lives resemble some crazy movie and gives us something to talk about.

Well, after a week of Institute excitement and womens cycling dramas it was about time to depart Canberra for Geelong where my AIS team of 6 would compete in the Geelong Tour and World Cup. I would miss the food hall with no cooking or cleaning up and the billion white bread rolls and trillion tubs of yoghurt it held. Apart from the billion white bread rolls, the pics of 80’s AIS sports stars and the one of John Farnham the food hall held, there were no longer any other traces of the `American Flyers’ 1980’s sports attitude I was hoping for. Yes, sad to say that it’s fairly cutting edge in a government department type of way.

PS- I think the `American Flyers’ DVD can be purchased for around $15 at K-Mart.  A worthy investment for all! Go Muzzin’!

Candice and I relaxing in AIS team kit

It wasn’t long ago that I was sitting around Italy sipping on cappuccinos and eating brioches at the local café, taking little day trips to Milan and somehow fitting in the odd ten-day cycling tour or day race every now and then!!!

Yup…life was good…

Even on the tours you have your food prepared for you, live in hotel rooms, have your whole day’s itinerary worked out for you, plus you get a daily massage! I mean, how stressful can things get? Ok, I’m probably not really painting the whole picture here, but I have to admit that life is pretty good on the European cycling scene!

Now I am back home and into a full training and full time working schedule …and back to having minimal time to myself. In some bizarre way, I also think life is still pretty great! I mean I’m really well looked after here with a great coach, a bunch of awesome friends, a fantastic family and to top it all off I live in the Hotel d’Loane where my mum loves cooking!!! Can’t get much better than that!

So since returning to Aussie soil and checking back into the Hotel d’Loane, I’ve been enjoying the good life again. After a two week holiday from work and the bike, I’ve somehow gotten my brain wired around the idea of once again working full time whilst fitting in a full training scedule. Hmmm, better check the brain function again! So I’m back into the full swing of my Aussie life and re-acquainting myself with my old faithful rides, like Nebo – Glorius, Mango Hill, Samford- Dayboro- Mt Mee, Coothas, Zupps and of course the Lifecycle shop rides.

It’s a good thing I’ve been back racking up the k’s on my favourite rides again because a few weeks ago, after my first successful European cycling trip, I had the great news of being offered a full Australian Institute of Sports (AIS) Scholarship for 2007. The scholarship means I’ll be racing with the AIS team in some Australian and New Zealand races in early 2007, will go to regular camps at the AIS from December onwards and that I’ll be returning to Europe to race for the Australian team next European summer.

It’s exciting news and just quietly I’m pretty proud of what Blair and I have done during the past year….since starting my cycle racing from pretty much scratch to now being offered a full AIS scholarship. There are also so many other people to thank who’ve helped me get to were I am… and they are of course, my own family, my Stockwell family, Greg for editting all of my articles, my friends and cycling buddies, my other supporters, Romeo and my sponsors. Thanks again, and please remember that a part of my success has definitely been because of you and next year when I’m back to sipping unbelievable cappuccinos in Italy I’ll be missing you all.