Belgium Calling

It's been a long time since I last wrote, I have a few excuses though! There are barely four and a half weeks now until we set sail for the Continent, and life is really getting busy now getting everything in order. It's all going on, negotiations with sponsors, arranging cars, working and even some occasional training. Not to mention the first race of the year...

Last week, Josh, Jay and myself, along with the rest of the OneLife Development Squad made the trip up to sunny Hillingdon. It was not the most successful of days! The day started well enough, after a good warm up we were all set to mix up the race, then after barely 10 laps a crash brought down both Jay and Josh. I was all but on my own, with the rest of the Development Squad getting used to the pace, I was left to fly the Flanders flag solo. After an aggressive race it was all looking like a bunch sprint, with the Cycles Dauphin team controlling the bunch with 5 laps to go. But Phil Sykes of Sigma Sport had other ideas, with 3 to go he launched off the front dragging one other with him. With 2 to go I rode across, and on the bell lap we had a good gap and I was confident of bringing home the win. But then disaster struck, Sykes led into the final lap, and on a bend the other rider had a rear tyre blow out. His excellent handling meant he didn't go down, but it forced me to slam on the brakes and waste all my momentum. I then had a 400m chase into the head wind to get back to Skyes, as we hit the finish straight Toby Meadows, a fellow Belgian based rider, had got across and launched his sprint. As I went to react, the bunch sprint caught both of us and Brixton Cycle's Joe Skelton just snuck the win with an exceptionally fast finish. Were it not for the blow out, I'm confident I had it in the bag, alas it was not to be. The good thing was the legs are definitely coming, despite the weather continuing to hamper training. The days bad luck did not end there however, while we had a post race coffee, both Josh and Jay had their cars broken into. Luckily not much was taken, but the damage to each car was no doubt exceptionally costly.

In other news we have inked a deal with Torq Fitness to provide us with exceptionally good value products for the season, so watch out for our new Torq mitts, socks and bottles on show in the near future! Also, our frames are now in Belgium, along with the rest of our kit. So team manager Jim is off to collect them at the weekend, so I should hopefully be able to pick up my frame on Monday. Watch this space for pictures! In the mean time, I have been polishing up a groupset ready to bolt on and set up...

In the mean time training has been going ok, despite the weather. Below was the scene on Radnor Road out of Peaslake in Surrey recently. The picture doesn't do it justice, you could barely see 200m at times! Generally though its all good, despite being the worst winter I've trained through, in fact the worst winter I can remember, I'm doing ok.

A big reason I haven't written in so long is that I have been putting together a proper website, so that I can keep you all informed in a much better way. It will also help me to publicise my sponsors as well. It's still ''under development'', but it's coming along nicely so once I've got it all the way I want it, I shall let you know the address so you can take a look.

Like I mentioned earlier, cars have also been causing headaches of late. So I have taken the decision to invest in a more practical car for us to use in Belgium this season. It's not quite mine yet, but the big green Berlingo below will be shortly. It's absolutely huge! It will happily take everything we can dream of needing for races and be ideal while travelling to and from the Continent. Plus, it's a diesel, so way more frugal on the juice!