Across The Pond

"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find
the ways in which you yourself have altered." - Nelson Mandela

I came across this quote last night and thought it was fitting was pretty fitting. The place for me that remains unchanged is my home town of Paterson. Paterson is located in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia and has the population of about 400 people. It's been great to return and reflect on my first 4 months of living in the USA and realise how much I did and saw. But enough with that. It's been a pretty hectic two weeks since leaving freezing St.Louis to arriving in sunny Sydney. Training hasn't been going as well as I would have liked which is probably not a good thing going into "the worlds hardest crit series" (Bay Crits) but I'm looking forward to two weeks solid training and racing in Victoria.

My bike getting all arty at "rolla door"

As it is summer down here in the southern hemisphere there is plenty of racing and it has been a chance to blow some cobwebs out before Bay Crits. I have raced on the velodrome in Newcastle twice and had a Saturday morning training session on it as well and also managed to finish the Sunday morning crit as well. It's been good to train out in the country again with plenty of decent roads and solid climbs all around me here. I forgot how bad the drivers are here but was quickly reminded on my first ride when I was run off the road by a truck and almost cleaned up by a few cars. Unbelievable.

Ahh the traffic...

Every ride I have tried to stop at a different cafe for coffee but I keep finding my way back to a place called "rolla door" which is on Beaumont Street in Newcastle. I was introduced to this place by Paddy and Pauly and is deadset the best coffee I have ever had.

Best coffee ever!

Christmas was spent with the fam enjoying good food and wine and boxing day (the day after Christmas for the Americans) was enjoyed at the Avondale Classic. The Avondale Classic is 3km run around "Beautiful Broadmedow" Race Track and was put on by Jess Kilmurray and her boyfriend Pete as challenge to family and friends. The idea is that the following year the competitor should beat their previous years time. The morning was a lot of fun with Pete taking out the run in a time of 10.09 which will be certainly hard to beat next year, but with many of the competitors talking up training hard for next year, who knows. Can I just point out that Pete is an absolute animal, he is definitely the most all round fittest bloke I have ever met, Squirt Qwigley (Kurt Gidley) has nothing on Pete. After the race Paddy brewed up some killer caffeine and Pete and his bro Maxy cooked some huge bacon and egg rolls which we consumed as we watched all the feral/westies/tradies trudge drunkenly to annual Newcastle Boxing Day races.

Pete about to receive the first annual Avondale Classic Cup.

Pete taking the "perfect meal" down the hatch

This afternoon I head down to Sydney on the first leg of the trip to Melbourne for New Years and Bay Crits, hopefully I will be able to give you another update when I get down there.

Until next time, take care everyone!
Laters, Chev.

Photo from the archive: View from the top paddock. look at all those bergs!

A Day in The Life (College)

G'day all,
So I thought I would give you all a little insight into what makes up an average day for me. I will start with college and hopefully do another one when I'm at home.

So for most of you what I do at college is a complete mystery so I decided to take my camera around with me for a day and document my daily routine although this week is finals week so it's not entirely accurate but I'm sure you'll get the picture.

Decisions, decisions...

After waking up, the first port of call is the Cafeteria, or "Cafe" (pronounced "kaff"). The cafe is awesome it's always got good variety and fresh foods and is run by sponsor and friend of the Lindenwood Cycling Team, Ralph Pfremmer.

A healthy breakfast rich in fruits and carbohydrates...

After breaky it is either out on the bike to do the days training or off to class to be educated for a few hours. The class sizes here at Lindenwood are much smaller than back in Oz, with more of a high school set up of about 20 people per class, which works well for me as I fall straight to sleep in lectures.

Cool little campus building, the architecture around campus is all similar to this

So it has been pretty bloody cold here but we have embraced the weather and whenever we spy a frozen dam or creek we take a break from riding to throw rocks on the ice and see if we can ice skate in our bike shoes. Yeah really mature I know but seriously this would never happen in Australia.

I have been getting caught out on my rides lately as the sun seems to just fall out of the sky as soon as it hits 4 in the afternoon, but once I get back in to town I'm greeted with Main Street lit up all very pretty for the festive season, and it's not that bad.

Main Street St. Charlie

The evenings are generally spent either on the rollers, in the computer lab pretending to do homework, or catching up with family and current events back home in Aus.

One of the school buildings by night.

Well after an exhausting day at college its lights out in 310 Flowers. Hopefully I gave you a little bit of an insight into my daily going on's...

310 Flowers in all its glory and yes mum it is a "brothel".

So at the moment I am sitting in QANTAS club in LAX drinking Moet with Paddy wait for our flight back home...lifes tough. We were checking in at STL airport when I turned around and saw a big tall black guy with these huge gold shades on after doing a double take that I realise that its in fact rapper/actor/muscle man LL Cool J. We didn't get a chance to get a photo with him as we were checking in but we did get to say "G'day mate!" on the plane. He seems like a really nice bloke, he was signing heaps of autographs and taking photos with people.

Well I have to get back to drinking more champagne and taking advantage of all the other benefits of this establishment whilst I still can.

Take Care, Chev.

One from the lost archives of photos on my computer: the morning walk to class.

Living In a Snow Globe

Howdy,
Last Tuesday arvo me, Norris and Crades packed the ever reliable Civic and headed 200 miles down the interstate to Springfield, Missouri, to visit our mate and fellow Novacastrian Pat Bergin. Springfield is home to Missouri State University where Pat is studying and swimming and is also Brad Pitts home town. We were spoilt with good food, good weather and some great roads to train on and train we did putting some solid kays down. Thanksgiving had a very international flavour with four Aussies, two Canadians, and a Venezuelan. We feasted on a huge lunch prepared by Eric, Pats roommate and Francy Pats girlyfriend and even threw in a good old Aussie piss up for good measure.
Friday night we were lucky enough to sneak into the brand new $100m basketball stadium where Missouri State were playing the University of Utah which is where Andrew Bogurt played in college and before being the number one draft pick of 2005.

Saturday morning we headed back to sunny St.Charles and waking up on Sunday morning we were greeted with two inches of white fluffy snow. The novelty of snow has quickly worn off having done 4 and half hours on the rollers in the last 2 days and whole day of slipping over on ice and getting frozen from walking from class to class.

Ciao, Chev.

Snow on the footy field.