The Pursuit of Professionalism: And so it begins...

Alrighty, so here we go, the first post of my new blog. Some of you might have been following my old blog, which sadly died a death some time in May last year. So I'm back again, and this time I promise to keep it up all year. I do intend to do it a bit differently though, firstly more pictures, as it just makes the whole thing much nicer to look at. Also, I don't intend to go into nearly so much detail on every race, thats what made it seem a bit of a chore after a while last time round. I want to update it regularly, but much more to the point. So what's new, well quite a bit...

It's now 2009, and as you can see I now have a new jersey on my back. That said, that'll change again soon when the new kit arrives, more orange! Basically, I progressed a lot last year, and theres just a chance I may be able to do something in this sport. So it was time to move to a more professional set up. Also, I have now fallen out with my old team, I can't really go into details. But lets just say things are far from settled. Enough of that though, my new team In-Gear Development Squad/OneLife is all I could ask for right now. Check them out on the links to the right. They have a great set up, and with a few riders now 'graduated' and riding on the continent, there really isn't a better team for me right now. I'll be based at home in the South East again for this season, at least until the summer as I have my degree to complete. But we will be making regular racing trips to Belgium where I am sure to learn much about a sport I still know relatively little about.

So today saw my debut for my new team at the Hillingdon circuit in West London. Yes, that is snow we're racing on! A light dusting made for interesting and frightfully cold racing conditions, not that the racing was any less hot for it. Although to be fair I only have myself to blame for starting the hostilities and attacking on the first lap!! Had an ok race overall, but having been sick over Christmas I was never going to be on a good day. But I rode strongly considering, and helped my new team mate Josh (seen in the top picture) get 3rd place, and excellent result considering we had no team agenda. Alan Denman, team manager and my coach, simply wanted us to get a good work out to gauge our fitness. We have another race there in two weeks, followed by our first big road race (Perfs Pedal Race) of the season on the 8th of Feb. So although not quite the racing season, we're not far away. Which is just as well, because I need a bit more form yet! Although the comedy of todays race, because I reached 1st category status last year, I am eligable to gain easy points from these winter races. So while some of the 2/3 cats were killing themselves for a 10th place and 1 point, I was able to cruise across the line scooping up some gratuitous points in the process. As although the race is E/1/2/3, they seperate the results so E/1s get a seperate result from the 2/3s. As well as seperate points of course, there are rarely more than 10 E/1s at these races, so I get points just for turning up!! (For the uninitiated, the points are for rankings on the British Cycling website and to qualify for licence categories. So I need just less than 350 if I am to gain my Elite licence now...)

Anyhow, that'll do for now. I'll leave you with an image of the best cycling shoes that money can buy, bar none! Behold, the Sidi Ergo2's in white vernice, you see you can't really get much more bling that that huh...