Nick Chevalley

Mutt

2010-05-21T16:43:00.000-07:00

HEY HEY!

Last time I wrote I was riding high on some pretty solid form unfortunately a month and a bit later my fortunes have somewhat turned. After the Southern Illinois race weekend I experienced a solid patch of bad luck. I'm a firm believer that you make your own luck, but I'm not sure how else to sum up the series of events that have haunted my racing this past month.

It started at the Michigan State road race, a race I was really excited about racing as the course was very Belgian Keremesse like, which featured a 2km section of gravel and the rest being held on narrow farm roads. Knowing about the dirt section I went and sourced out a solid set of hardy tires and even put some "puncture proof" inner liners in. First lap in I was feeling great, I led over the gravel section and was sitting comfortably in the group and well positioned in the crosswind sections, but second time around on the gravel my rear tire had blown. The spare car was well behind the group (see photo below) and after a bit of chase I realized that my day was over. I was pretty annoyed as it was the first collegiate race that I hadn't finished.

Hating life in Michigan

After returning from Michigan I was eager to make up for the lack of results and trained with renewed vigor going into the last race of the regular conference season, Regional Championships. This year they were held at Purdue in Indiana, I had a good result there last year and was looking forward to the race again. On the Friday as we were just loading up the vans some sort of gnarly flu or virus hit me like a sack of proverbial shit and that was it. I spent the weekend in the hotel room in the fetal position on my bed. I didn't eat for 30 hours, just drank water and gatorade and slept. Disappointing to say the least.

Tilles Park Criterium

Having had such good early season success, my position on the team headed for Nationals was still there fortunately. The virus I got knocked a few kilos of my weight which would be good heading into the Nationals road race which was to be held over some hilly terrain in Wisconsin. The course was the same as the 1st stage of the Tour of Americas Dairyland, so I was familiar with just how hard it was. With that in mind I put down some really solid training in preparation for it and being rested I felt I was on some real good form. Again, unfortunately I had a mechanical on the major climb of the course which meant I couldn't get into my two highest gears which meant I was struggling just to turn my pedals over.
The team, as I predicted in the last post, had an awesome weekend with the evergreen Matt Brandt getting 3rd in the criterium and Tim Norris getting 18th. Nationals just topped off a great season for Lindenwood with 3 victories and a heap of top 10's. 2010 was definitely our best season by far and I can't wait to get amongst it again next year.

Havin' a go...

Well collegiate season is over and it's on to the domestic summer season of mostly crits. This year I'll be riding for the MOBRA Development team, it's a small squad with a modest budget but it's goal is to get us to as many races as possible and I'm stoked for the opportunity. More about the team at a later time though.

This weekend we are heading off to Champagne, Illinois for two days of criterium racing to kick off the summer season.

Until next time, take care.

Chev.

Sum of The Years Digits

2010-03-29T17:07:00.000-07:00

G'day,

well spring collegiate racing season is in full swing here. We have just finished our 5th weekend of racing on the trot with 10 races notched up so far. The team has been amazing so far racking up 2 wins, 2 2nds 4 3rds and a but load of top 10's which has put us up to 3rd on the teams rankings. This is quite a feat as we are probably the only Division 1 school in the conference that has no women so to be up there speaks a lot for our male only team.

Workin' hard for the boys. It was wet, real wet!

I have had some good form this season so far which has helped me to some good results. I took 6th in the Lindsey Wilson individual time trial which was a surprise as the race against the clock really isn't my forte. The best result so far has come on home turf at the Lindenwood Road Race taking 2nd behind my super strong breakaway compatriot Chris Uberti after going clear of the main pack with a little over 70 kilometers to the finish. I was pretty devestated to loose at my home race especially after how hard the race was but Chris is a far better cyclist then I and really deserved the win. Next time I'll have it though.

I'm not the greatest sprinter at the best of times, especially after 135kms.

My purple patch continued into the following weekend at the Southern Illinois University race. The game plan was for either me or my Spanish team mate Jose to get in the early break and force a chase from other teams and to ease the pressure off Matt and Owen a bit. So being the good team player I charged off the line only to get a kilometer down the road to be sweeped up by the pack, well you know what they say "if at first it doesn't work, then try again!". So after a quick drink I went again and luckily (or unluckily) they let me have some space and wouldn't be seen by any of the group until 5kms to go. I knew I had a lot of time on the group when I saw the face of the Marian coach and was confirmed when I got my first time check that I had 6 minutes on the pack.

It got lonely out there, there weren't huge crowds in rural Southern Illinois.

So after 90 long kms off the front alone a small group of riders finally closed the gap on me with about 5kms to go. Another victory just out reach. I wasn't too bummed though, I did my job and went as hard as I could.

Coach giving me the score in the cricket.

Well we have just completed a huge week of training over spring break which should put us in good shape for Nationals which is exactly one month away. Lindenwood will be looking for a good showing this year and I think we will surprise a few teams.

Until next time, take care.

Chev.

Midnight Regulations

2010-02-02T08:59:00.001-08:00

Well well it's been a while since my last update and I have much to report.
Since last writing I have been at home enjoying the southern hemispheres summer. It was great to get out of the cold for 6 weeks and put down some solid training for the coming season.

The top of Tawonga Gap

After a week of trying to acclimatise to the searing Australian heat I headed south to the little alpine town of Bright for a week of training in the mountains. The Bright training camp had become an annual thing for me and is definitely integral to gain early season form. It was a tough week but had the company of some great guys and the support network of some very experienced professionals made it very beneficial!

Lake on the left, mountains of the right. Love riding around the Valley!

I know I'm probably biased but I love training in the Hunter Valley! We have a bit of everything, some solid climbs and valley flats all on good roads with awesome scenery. It also helps when you can come in after a big session and enjoy home cooked meals, kick back in the pool and decimate your parents red wine collection.

Pit stop on the way back down Mt. Seaview.

Well I have left the warmth of Australia and made the trip back north-east to icy tundra of Missouri to start another year of college. Although the cold is depressing the collegiate cycling season starts in 3 weeks and I'm pretty pumped for my second season. My form is good I just have to stay healthy and finish off couple more things in training and I should be doing alright.

Flat Rock pumping. Nothing like summer swell.

This year we have 10 weekends of racing, 8 of which are back to back with the final two being conference championships and then Nationals. All the boys are looking very sharp and I'm talking shit up this season for the team!

We got caught in a snow storm. Bit different to the heat in Aus!

It's time to get going and do some training. I'll keep you posted soon on results and general going on's, so be sure to check back soon.
Stay upright!
Chev.

Quick Update

2009-12-03T08:12:00.001-08:00

What's up y'all?
Just a quick hello from sunny St. Charles. One week till I leave for home, been 11 months since I have been back!
School is wrapping up for the semester and the training volume is starting to increase. Last week I had a 4 day camp down in north Georgia. It was amazing riding down there, beautiful landscape and very friendly locals. It was good to get away for a while and ride some nice ling climbs.

At the top of one of the climbs in picturesque North Georgia.

Looking forward to next year, I'm really excited for the collegiate season and hopefully will be able to use it in the lead up to a good season racing over summer. Lindenwood is going to be strong next season, we have bolsted our ranks with some quality riders and an amazing coach, will be a big year for sure. I haven't got a outside team finalised yet, but will know exactly what's happening by the time I get home. Some exciting prospects on the horizon!

What collegiate cycling is all about.

Well I have to get going now (I said it was going to be quick), much school work to be completed in such little time.

Take care,
Chev.

Another Stone Rolls Over

2009-08-29T07:18:00.000-07:00

Hi there,

Well I'm safely back in the United States of America after a month in Belgium. My stay in Belgium was amazing, to say the least, I learnt and experienced a lot thanks greatly to the awesome guys I was staying with. The last half of the stay was much the same as first with plenty of kermesses and plenty of sight seeing.

My room...

The lifestyle in Europe was incredible and I should explain the typical day to give you some idea; wake up at the very casual hour of 10am eat a huge breakfast whilst catching up on all the news of the cycling world, if I didn't have a race that day I would go out and train with the boys for 2-4hours (depending on what time the tour was going to start on TV), if I was racing I would bum around the house eat lunch then ride to the race, race, then ride home. Then dinner time was either a rice or pasta dish (I honed my cooking skills somewhat whilst there) and then sit down for an evening of any english TV show we could find.

Dream day in sunny Belgium.

I think I did about 15-17 races whilst there and a poo load of training so hopefully I have some form for the last road races for the season and also for Collegiate Track Nationals. I already miss Belgium, it's amazing beer and chocolate and also the mates I made there but hopefully will be back there in the next couple of years.

The boys: Owen, Peter-Lee, Cammo and Ruan.

It's been a year since I arrived in the States to start college and the time really has flown. I start college as a sophomore this year and it's weird seeing all the new freshman blindly trying to find their way around campus and it's hard to imagine that was me only a year ago.

Well today the Lindenwood team heads out to Sedalia for a crit tonight and then a road race Sunday and should be a good test to see how the form is before Gateway cup in a weeks time.

I have to go pack my bags now so until next time, take care.

Chev.

Bell Jam

2009-07-20T09:21:00.000-07:00

G'day g'day,

It's been a while I know so I guess i'll start from where I left off.

Cruisin'

On the 16th of June, Addison (my roomie and team mate) and I packed the car and headed up to Minnesotta to stay for a couple of nights and pack up the RV before heading across to Wisconsin for the Tour of America's Dairyland. After being held up in Minnesotta due to a tornadoe we finnally got into Wisconsin in the wee hours of the morning to start racing the tour. It was going to be 11 days, 10 stages in 9 cities across the "Dairyland State".

A wet day in Waterloo

I won't go through every stage but I was pretty happy with the results considering I was on my back in hospital paralyzed from a virus just a week before the start of the race. I managed to grab afew top 40's and a 26th was my best result for the tour. All in all it was good tour and was a great opportunity to race against some big US teams.

Hanging out in another Walmart

After Tour of America's Dairyland was done and dusted we worked out we had traveled close to 1500 miles in 2 weeks and parked way too many nights in Walmart parking lots. Once back in STL my good mate Matt Camilleri called me up and asked me had I booked my tickets back home yet and if I hadn't I should come stay and race with him in Belgium for a month. I was in like Jim and after a couple of frantic weeks trying to get an international licence and flights sorted out I was stepping of the plane in Brussels.

Matt mid park up on the first ride in Belgie

After struggling with a suitcase, bike bag and the language barrier I finally jumped off the train in Lierde the town that would be my home for the next 5 weeks. I still don't know where Lierde is in relation to Brussels or the rest of Belgium but I'm guessing it's in the south becuase it's only an hour ride and you're into France. The area is pretty much holy ground in regards to cycling with many of the big pro races traversing the roads here and the Muur and the Koppenberg which are brutal cobbled climbs are within 30 minutes ride.

The Muur. This is a brutal cobble climb that features in the classic Tour of Flanders.

Yesterday was my first race in Belgium and was an under 23 race about 15km away. The race went well and after 50kms I pulled the pin as I'm told you don't want to go too deep in your first race because you can end up digging a big hole. It's hard to explain how much the Belgians love their cycling but everyday day there is a race on in a town within riding distance and all the townsfolk will be out to watch the race and grab a wurst and beer.

The streets of Geraadsbergen. A stage of Le Tour went up here a few years ago...

Well I'm off to get ready for another race tomorrow. Until next time keep living the dream and take care.

Chev.

In A Cave

2009-06-09T17:27:00.001-07:00

Wassup,

Yeah it's been a while... I don't really get near the Internet for any extended period of time these days but I'll try and update you as best I can.

So the last time I posted I was heading out to Collegiate Nationals. Well lets just say Nats was a learning experience and it was great to see the amount of talent getting about in the sport at the moment. I finished the road race in 58th spot and was the 3rd group on the road. The crit was much more cruisy then the road race and I managed to roll over in 62nd.

Since nationals I have been doing most of the local races. I have been out of the money in the last 3 races I have done which has been really disappointing. Last Sunday night less I went to hospital with a massive headache, fever and a terribly sore throat, and that where I stayed for a couple of days. I guess that explains the sub par results.

I have the Missouri State Road Champs this weekend and then I head up to do the 10 day Tour of America's Dairyland which should sort me out. Then I have two mellow weeks then I'll do the first two weeks of Super Week then I'll fly home and focus on getting fast over 3kms.

I'll try and keep the twitter updates going. Hopefully it won't be so long between posts.
Take care, Chev.

She's Hearing Voices

2009-05-02T22:03:00.000-07:00

Howdy all,

So under some pressure I'm updating my blog although no one reads it apart from my mum...It's been a while since my last update so I'll try and bring things up to date.

Two weekends ago the team made the long trip up to "America's Dairyland", Wisconsin. They really take the dairy thing a bit to far as you can buy cheese curds by the kilo almost anywhere, god knows why you would want to eat cheese curds anyway. There are dairys everywhere and out in the farms everything seriously smells like cow shit and I thought Paterson was bad.Anyway enough about cow shit. The road race was on a rolling 80mile (128km) course and we were blessed with some good weather for once so things weren't all doom and gloom. The cross winds and the Marian College-Lindsay Wilson showdown shattered the field about 30miles in leaving about 20 guys left. Owen, Stroot and myself were the only survivors left from Lindenwood. I gotta give big props to Stroot here, as Marian and Lindsey Wilson started attacking each other the group got strung out and I got caught out and had to chase hard which is when Stroot dropped back from the front group and rode me on. A truly hard man effort. I finished the day in 7th in a downhill bunch kick with Owen and Stroot rounding out the top 20.

Bikes ready to roll.

Sundays crit was held in downtown Madison around the Capitol building. It was a really cool course, not to technical and a bit of a hill which is about as good as any crit gets for me. Thing’s were going well until about halfway through when the heavens opened up and it started flogging down. Now before you start calling me soft and asking whether I’m made from sugar I have to explain that the course was on slick concrete so when it gets wet it’s like ice. I crashed twice but still managed to roll over for 17th. Owen got away in a small group just before it started to rain and held on to out sprint the rest of the breakaway for Lindenwood’s first victory of the season.

The Capitol Building in Madison

Last weekend was the Mid West Cycling Conference regional championships and was the last weekend of racing for the season. We had another long drive to Athens, Ohio for the race. The road race was another 80 mile undulating course with two challenging climbs. First lap I dropped my chain completely at the bottom of one of the climbs and had to get off and put it back. I had to chase for the next 10km to get back on and was suffering pretty hard in the hottest day I have had since leaving the Australian summer months ago. The rest of the race was fairly uneventful and I finished 19th after a fairly average sprint.

As about as scenic as it gets in Wisconsin...

Sundays crit was in Columbus, Ohio around part of the Ohio State college grounds. Ohio state is a MASSIVE school and they obviously party pretty hard there as the when we were driving in it looked like a war zone (if said war was fought with beer). It was another hot day and the wind was blowing a gail too, as such not many people finished. After about the halfway mark the group started to feel the heat, and for about 15 minutes there I felt like all I was doing was closing gaps left from the people getting shelled. Finally I made the chasing second group with about 6 others and that’s how it finished rolling over in 10th.

Following and attack by Will Nowak at the Regionals Criterium.

Lindenwood have qualified for Collegiate Nationals which are being held in Fort Collins, Colorado between Friday and Sunday next week. I should be really excited and motivated for these races but there have been some really big distractions here lately and my head definitely isn’t in racing at the moment. After this weekend I’ll be taking some well needed time off to reassess some things.
I’m looking forward to a big summer of racing and seeing more of this great country before going home at the end of July to focus on the track.
(More pictures to come soon)

Just making sure that I did come last in the sprint...

Take care y'all,

Chev.

Keeping Up Appearances

2009-04-06T18:26:00.000-07:00

G'day,

Spring Break... I wish mine was as exciting as those teen Hollywood movies portray it to be. After returning from Chicago I had one night stop over here on campus and then took off up north to Quincy, Illinois for a couple of days training in the country at Dave Stroot's house. We had a sweet little set up in Dave's aunty's farm house with all the modern conveniences and pretty much all the food we could eat. The first day we rode for 5 hours in pretty much perfect weather the second day was a windy, cold and very wet 3 hours.

About as exciting as it gets on a five hour ride...

Friday it was back to LU for a quick team meeting then off to Lebanon, Indiana for a weekend of racing. First off was the Team Time Trial, which is definitely our teams strongest discipline, but shortly after the start we lost Stroot due to a broken chain but Owen, Frank and myself still managed to put in a strong effort to come in 3rd. In the afternoon I had to back up for the road race which was held on a very unforgiving course which featured a gnarly steep hill and some sketchy cross wind sections. It's by far the best road course I have raced on with a large crowd on the hill each lap which really had a great atmosphere about it. Owen and myself made the break of the day and spent 5 laps of the front in a group of nine. I ended up 5th in the uphill finish and was pretty pleased with the result.

The team cargo van choc-a-bloc.

Qualifying for nationals has been on all the minds of the boys and is very frustrating because we are clearly one of the top 3 mens A teams in the conference but get screwed by other schools because they have females that by just finishing the womens A race get points that count towards Team Qualifications. I'm not trying to be sexist or anything but it's incredibly frustrating for a team with no females that would easily be racing at Nationals if the sexes qualified separately. Our only hope now is that a few of us can qualify individually, fingers and toes crossed I will make it.

The mighty Mississippi

Can I recommend to any sporting fan or anyone that needs a bit of life motivation that they read Bradley Wiggins autobiography "In Pursuit of Glory". Not only is a great read it's very motivational even a non cyclist can take something away from it. I hardly put it down, and finished it in three days and I have taken some great lessons away from it.

Anyway I have to go and study for a World History test now but as always, take care!
Chev.

When Young Terrorists Chase The Sun

2009-03-30T20:24:00.000-07:00

Howdy,

Well it's been a little while since the last post. Much has happened. Well last post I reported I crashed in a race, well turns out I cracked my frame so I have been rolling a shop bike until I get my new bike ordered.

Last weekend the Lindenwood team headed up to Notre Dame (pronounced "note-er day-m") in South Bend, Indiana. We had a great showing in the 70 mile road race with Owen "the butcher" Belton getting 2nd with Stroot and I bringing home the bunch to grab a couple of top twentys. Sunday's crit was a cool 1 mile loop with no corners thus was very fast. With the bunch together with one lap to go I had Paddy on my wheel delivering him to the front but half a lap to go I fucked up and also Paddy's chances on a decent finish. We live, we learn.

Some of Banksy's handywork?

Anyway, we are on spring break now so I took the chance to drive up to Chicago and check out what all the fuss is about. Safely back in St. Charles now, I can definitely say that it's an awesome place and is a really cool city. Heaps of cool shops and places to eat, wish I had a bigger bank balance. Oh yeah, check out the photo above, I ran across it walking back from checking out lake Michigan, I'm pretty sure it's by famous stencil artist Banksy. Can some one confirm this for me? It was also a good chance to put the bike in the closet for a couple of days and just relax.

Mandatory "Bean" photo...

This weekend we are off to Purdue and Marian colleges in Indiana, which is from all reports one of the best weekends of racing on the Collegiate calender. Each weekend we are getting closer and closer to pulling off a victory, the team is really coming together and is only a matter of time despite what some people think.
Sorry about the lack of racing photos but I can't find any at the moment...

Anyway take care everyone,
Chev.

Crusin' for a Bruisin'

2009-03-16T19:03:00.000-07:00

Hey Hey!
Some good news to report from the Forest Park Crit on the weekend, my business partner/room mate/team mate Paddy "Crades" Kilmurray secured Mesa's first win of the seaons, HOWAREYA!

Crusing for a bruising

My race was going alright until about 45 mins in I got chopped hardcore and went fanging in to the gutter at 52km p/h! Day over but didn't sustain any bad injuries so as frustrating as it was not to finish I can't complain too much.

"Nice wrist." "Yeah, she's ok."

This weekend we head up to Notre Dame (somewhere up the top of Indiana) for another weekend of collegiate racing. Anyway being a good student calls... (cough cough)

Pretending to warm up

Things got strung out...

Paddy sealing the deal

Till next time, take it easy.
Chev.

Pace Is The Trick

2009-03-13T15:40:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all,

Just a quick update, the people in the athletic department at Lindenwood have finally pulled their finger out and updated the cycling site. You can check it out here. You can creep our profiles (look out for Stephens shout out) and keep up to date on our schedule and results.

Take care,
Chev

Busier Than A One Armed Bricklayer In Baghdad

2009-03-09T07:15:00.000-07:00

Sup y'all?

Well as the tittle suggests I have been pretty busy of late juggling mid-term exams, showing my mum around St. Louis/St. Charles and not to mention training/racing. Well last weekend we headed off to Greencastle, Indiana for the second round of racing. The weather was almost perfect with temperatures in the mid 20's with not too severe winds for Saturdays 80km road race. Without going into to much detail, we failed to get a man in the break again but still managed to get 3 in the top 20. Saturday afternoon we relocated to the middle of nowhere Indiana for the 5 mile Team Time Trial where we (Owen, Frank, Stroot and I) surprised even ourselves in taking second against some really strong competition. Stoked!

As happy as a pig in mud!

Sunday's crit was a little over a mile pretty much dead flat and not too technical. Although there was tornado and storm warnings out across most of Indiana they decided it would entertaining to see how many dudes would get blown in to the gutter or completely off their bikes. The crit was really tough and I was pretty happy just to finish even though I was chewing my handlebars for the entirety of the race. The two hard men on the team shone in the crit with Paddy and Owen getting Lindenwood some valuable conference/nationals points.

Focusing hard on the day ahead bar Frank obviously.

All the boys form looks promising for the coming weeks and I know that it's only a matter of time till we get Lindenwoods maiden victory. On a side note it's great to hear the Australian cricket team has finally pulled their finger out and have started winning games again!
Also you can check me out here on twitter now as I know you can't get enough of Chevalley.
Until next time. Take care and stay upright!

Chev.

Kentucky Fried Chicken Legs

2009-03-02T13:24:00.000-08:00

How's it?

Last weekend Lindenwood kicked off our collegiate cycling campaign with a trip to Kentucky to the south. Well as soon as we crossed the border the stories I had heard about Kentucky being pretty Hillbilly were confirmed when we drove past "Joe Bob's Flower Mart". Anyway to the racing. Saturday was the 64 mile road race (100km (I think...)) and it pissed down rain the whole race, then the rain gave way to ice with about 20 miles to go and then the ice gave way to snow for the remainder of the race. Good times let me tell you. Then there was the wind, as they say it would of "blown a dog off it's chain" and I think thats all that needs to be said about that. I was almost dropped on the second lap of the race but managed to crawl back on and lead Norris out for the bunch kick. Team mate Frank was up the road in a group of 8 and got us some sweet points coming in 7th. From the 70-80 starters about 25 finished the road race just to give you an idea how hard the race was.
Sunday morning we rock up to the crit and were greeted with the most ridiculous crit course I have ever seen. Half a mile (800m) loop with 15 corners, held on what could be best described as a goat track. Some of the bigger schools decided it wasn't worth the trip to the hospital so early in the season but by the gentle persuasion of our coach we lined up. Well once the dust had settled we finished with 5 riders in the top 20 picking up some more valuable conference points. I have to point out here that I was the only Lindenwood rider not to crash in the crit and managed to creep over in ninth, see kids sometimes it's cool to be a pussy.
All in all we had a pretty good weekend, it was a good learning experience for myself and also for the team as six of us are rookie collegiate cyclists. I'm still pretty bummed we didn't get to eat at KFC but we did get to go to a real honky tonk bar which included feral locals that speak a thick southern accent say funny things like "hey boy!" and "getter done!".

My mum is visiting this week and I'm off now to show my her the sights around St.Charles.
Until next time, take care.
Chev.
P.S. Other possible post tittles included:
KFC (Kentucky Fried Chev)
KFC (Kentucky's F*#king Crazy)
Not Getting Lucky in Kentucky

Whoo! Alright-Yeah...Uh Huh

2009-02-14T10:42:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

Just a quick update from sunny St.Charles. As Australia has been experiencing the worst bushfires and hottest weather in it's history, St.Chuck has been between 10-20c which has made for some pleasant training, or as pleasant as training gets anyway. Despite having a day off this week due to the flu, I should get close to getting 20 hours on the bike again this week.

Posing the new gear outside our favourite brew shop

Only one week left until our first race which will be the start to my US road campaign for the year. Next weekend we have a training camp here in STL and then have a race on the Sunday in Colombia, Missouri.

Part time mechanic, full time giant J-Bo and Cliffy "The Taree Turtle"Lyons

Well the temperature has plummeted here over night and it's now a barmy 1c as I write this so I'm about to jump in to bed and contemplate about getting on the rollers tonight.

Until next time, take care.

Chev.

Franga's Interview

2009-02-06T09:46:00.000-08:00

Hey all,
New member of the Lindenwood cycling team, Francis (AKA Frank, Franga, Franklin, Frankston, Frankenstein) just did a cool interview with me on his blog. You can check it out at www.francishamre.blogspot.com I must stress that it's not a very serious interview but it's funny all the same.

Cheers, Chev

Youth & Young Manhood

2009-02-02T17:23:00.000-08:00

Howdy all,

Well the last time I wrote I was jet lagged and it was snowing, well I'm glad to report that my body clock has converted to US time and it has finally stopped snowing here. We ended up getting about half a foot of snow which was weird, the only way I can explain it to the people back home is it was like going to school in Perisher Blue (a Australian ski resort). In all truthfulness though if it had snowed like this in Perisher it would have been the biggest dump in decades and every man and his dog would have been screaming down the 'Snowy Way' to get on the slopes but over here it's business as usual.

Stoked!!!

We have some new dudes on the team this semester and now the snow has been cleared from the roads we have been out training as a group getting to know each other. I'm pretty stoked to say that all the guys on the squad are good blokes and are fun to hang around. I think we are going to do well in the collegiate road seasons because everyone is dedicated to riding as a team and everyone is mates, being mates might not sound like a big deal but in a bike race when things are going shit only good mates will bleed for each other.

The boys in action.

I have also received my new ride, it's a Specialized Tarmac Pro SL with SRAM Red componentry (I'll get a photo up soon all you bike pedophiles reading). This bike is so light and stiff it's definitely the best bike I have ever ridden. Also picked up my new Specialized shoes and helmet which are both awesome, the helmet is so light I'm always forgetting that I'm actually wearing it and the shoes are both comfy and really rigid. The new steed got it's first gallop on the weekend and past all the test with flying colours including the one were I blow all the other boys doors off on the in to St.Charles sprint. Even rockin' Robbie McEwen would have been proud.

A new way to hold the bike, Crades seems impressed...

Until next time, take care.

Laters all, Chev.

Aligators and Assholes, meeting the Maxaphone.

2009-01-26T02:33:00.000-08:00

G'day,

I have arrived back in sunny St.Louis and was welcomed with a good dose of snow. The trip from Sydney was a dream everything went really smooth and we were able to lounge out across vacant seats on the flight from Syd to LA as there was pretty much no one on the flight. I'm writing this at 4.30 in the morning as I'm jet lagged to the hilt.

Last Friday I went to watch Australia v South Africa in the cricket, although the wrong team won it was an awesome day and I got to meet a few childhood heroes namely Doug Walters and Max Walker. Both these dudes were pretty sensational cricketers in their day and both are legendary beer drinkers too which knocks them up a few notches in my books.

The MaxaphoneAll happening at the SCG Switchback in King Edward Park

I now have a month to prepare for the first race of the season which I'm really looking forward to. I have heard only good things about the collegiate road racing scene and we are all good mates on the team so I'm sure its going to blast traveling and racing around the midwest.

Sorry but thats about all I have for the moment.
Cheers, Chev.

Hammin' & Jammin'

2009-01-14T20:37:00.000-08:00

“Do you mean sexually, or financially…?” Mick Jager

Crushin it in the heat.

The last few days have been scorching hot here in the Hunter Valley, as such riding has been done either early in the morning or late in the evening, more often than not the later. When I say it's been hot I mean it's been HOT!!! It was 42 Celsius when I went in to the shop to get things for lunch, that's 108 Fahrenheit! So as such I have a lot of time to kill in the middle of the day to kill and have been creeping Youtube pretty hard so I though I would share some of my latest favourites on here.

Anyone that knows me well, knows that I love watching music videos on Youtube and the first vid is a clip from a 15 piece collective out of San Fran called Still Flyin'. As Crades would say "it's heaps noisy", but it's a pretty catchy tune and has been stuck in my head for weeks.

Second video is from Seth McFarlane who is the mind behind Family Guy and American Dad. I love this video because it sums Christianity, and well every other religion, pretty well.

If anyone can tell me what/where this climb is I'll buy them a schooner (Seriously).

Stay cool, literally.

Chev.

Pots or Pints?

2009-01-10T22:25:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

Apologies for the lack of updates lately but I have been away from the net for 2 weeks, BUT I do have stories to tell so listen in.

Well it said riders wanted...

On the 30th of December myself, Cliff Lyons and Matt Cammo packed up the old faithful Toyota Kluger and headed on the 1000km journey south to Melbourne for New Years and Bay Crits. Meeting us down there on NYE was Mr. PJL Kilmurray as this is the second year we have gone down for the festivities and racing and is now pretty much tradition.

Yeah...we had some spare time on our hands. Paddy bench pressing Cammo

It was cool to play tourist in Melbourne for a couple of days cementing my notion that it is definitely one of the best cities I have been to in the world. We did the obligatory dinner on the famous Lygon Street, shopped on the ever so trendy Chapel Street and also checked out St.Kilda Beach. Paris Hilton was spotted shopping on Chapel Street the day before we were there so you know it's good. New Years was again a massive blast, I won't digress but I will say we certainly met some interesting characters on the train that night.

Old Tram on Chappel Street.

Bay Crits...Hmmm. As cricket season is full swing down here in Australia I will use a Tony Greig cliche quote to sum up the five days of racing at Bay Crits "hard and fast!!!". It was good training lets just put it that way as I was able to knock up 3-4 hours each day on the bike so I guess it's not all bad.

Last day of Bay Crits

The whole week around Bay Crits its pretty cool as you are always spotting pros out riding or just hanging out in cafes, sometimes this is a bad thing if you read Paddy's blog you will understand. Another cool thing was seeing Rockin' Robbie turn up on that start line of the first stage in a taxi, quickly build his bike then immediately start the race.

I have to say that the whole two weeks have been extremely enjoyable even if I was getting pumped in the races and hours of hard training thanks to having good mates around.

Cammos best surfer pose at Torquay.

After dropping Cammo at the airport I made my way solo up to the town of Bright which is nestled right in the middle of the Victorian Alps for a four day training camp with my coach Aaron and his squad of hyperactive Tri-Athletes. I have been to bright a couple of times now and I think its probably the best place in Aus to train as there is an abundance of climbs and good roads. My legs were super tired after Bay Crits and throw in 2, 30km+ climbs, 100kms of motor pacing and another 12km climb, I was ready for my coffin. But I can be happy knowing that I have started putting a solid base down for the coming road season.

Bryce (aka Bruce, Cron Dog, Koby Abberton) atop of Tawonga Gap

Two weeks today until I go back to the USA, until then it's more of the same: hang with the family,enjoy lots of good food and wine, chill at the beach and maybe a bit of training.

Until next time, take care. Chev.
Don't forget to leave a comment either!

Across The Pond

2008-12-28T17:36:00.000-08:00

"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)

2008-12-08T12:42:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-01T17:41:00.000-08:00

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.

New Year, New Team, same old cliches

2008-11-23T17:23:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

Keeping to my promise of keeping my blog updated I'll be filling y'all in on whats been happening in the world of "Cheva". I'm happy to say that I will be riding for Mesa Cycles for the 2009 season. After a mini camp here in St. Louis last weekend I can confirm that this team is the real deal, the team is so well organised thanks to the great managment and has some great talent in the ranks.
I'm extremely motivated for the 2009 season as I will contesting some very big races both, collegiate and also the races I will be doing with Mesa. The next couple of weeks I will be sitiing down with Paddy nutting out the races I wish to do here in North America. Cycling is a sport of sacrafices; you sacrifice your social life, your time with family, your school work, your right to eat whatever you want etc, etc... As I said next year is going to be for me and if I really want to give this whole bike racing thing a shot I need to stay here over the summer holidays and race as much as possible.
With less than 3 weeks until I return down under I have started getting excited to get home and see family and friends and also do some solid racing and training. I plan on racing on the track as much as possible and also heading down to Melbourne/Geelong with the boys to the Jayco Bay Classic again. After the 5 days of racing I will head north to Bright for a training camp and then finally back to the sunny Hunter Valley.
Last night we went out to a night time Cyclo Cross race and had a blast, but I guess when you put a free keg on and make thin blokes ride around a silly course with all sorts of absurd obsticles you can't go wrong.
Until then I will be charging around Lindenwood and St.Charles with the other Aussies causing absolute mayhem. Oh and if you want to check out some great cliches jump over to Tim Norris (Custard Arm) blog he has some absolute rippers on there.

Beautiful Newcastle beach on a summers arvo (afternoon for any yank reading).

Under Midwestern Skies

2008-11-04T16:26:00.000-08:00

Hi all,

Firstly please excuse me for being so lazy with my blog but honestly nothing too exciting has been happening since seasons end apart from drinking beer and sleeping.(Due to problems I have been having with the slow internet connection and heavy load of school work I haven't been able to post this online until now so please excuse that the following events happened some time ago now) I'm writing amidst a very historical moment for the USA,just 10 minutes ago Barak Obama has just won the election and will become the first African American President of the USA. The election couldn't have come fast enough for me as I'm well over the ads,bumper stickers and lawn signs and I have only been here 3 months!!! I must admit it has been pretty exciting to expierence first hand.
So I thought I would do a wrap up of the season that has been 2008.
It all started on the 2nd of January at the Bay Criterium Series in Melbourne/Geelong. Myself, Paddy, Custard Arm (Tim Norris), Ozza, Johnsy and good mate Matt Camilliri all made the trip down for New Years and 5 days of solid racing. I always heard about hard Bay Crits were but it was another thing to actually expierence. The first day I was dropped from the main pack on the 2nd lap! This really set things up for the week as I only managed to finish one race, but I was able to take much away from it (including an impressive power file from the day I actually finished).

After Bay Crits it dawned on me that I was deep in a creep hole after a long season racing all around Australia trying to prove myself as some sort of bike rider. It was a couple of months of putting down a solid base for the coming season which meant lots of long kays. My partner in crime for early season kays was Matt Cammo as just having signed for a German team was looking for some long kays before heading over. The usual Wednesday morning long one which always started at "Beautiful Broadmedow" race course and we ended up anywhere from Blackhill, Seaham or out the back of Martins Creek generally with me drafting behind Cammos 20km efforts.
As any Aussie bike racer knows, as soon as the State Opens start rolling it means lots of travel to far out country places, cheap hotels and a good dose of beer. Oh and some racing as well. First state open this year was the Bathurst Weekend which i was able to manage a 7th in the hillclimb and a 10th in the criterium. I should mention that at the start of the year I had some unsually good form sprinting for reasons unknown. With sprinting form high I managed two more top tens against some good competion at Cootamundra and also at the Sydney Road champs.

With some results early form was high but some bad luck and bad tactics on my half kept me out of the money for a while in the state opens. The McDonalds classic down at Wagga Wagga was such example of some bad luck, with Tim Norris designated sprinter for the day I had completed my job almost perfectly by picking him up with 5 laps to go bringing him to the front for the sprint. On the last lap disaster happened when with Tim on my wheel I got pushed wide and subsequently over a median strip which effectively ended any chance of a result that day. It wasn't until a couple of months later that I was able to make it up to Tim leading him out to a perfect win at the Peter Van Gent Classic.

Gunnedah to Tamworth was the first state open I ever did and this year was the third time I have raced it. A break of 5 went affter about 5km and I was lucky or unlucky enough to be in it as it was acutally decided before the race that my team mate Sam Layzell was meant to be the man to ride the break that day. 100kms later I finally blew after about 3 hours off the front and returned to the bunch for a medicore placing but I did gain alot of form that weekend.

More state opens but not too much to write home about. Finished 7th in the NSW U/23 Individual Time Trial champs which was my last race before heading state side.
Obviously the biggest highlight for me this season was being given the chance to study and live in the USA and it was cycling that gave me this opportunity. Immediately I was able to compete at a level which I couldn't in Australia and that was racing legitiment professional cyclists at Gateway Cup. Also winning a Missouri State gold medal in the points race was another highlight. The trip out to Collegiate Nationals was the icing on the cake with setting the early time for Team Pursuit and finishing 4th in the event being the highlight for me for the year. It's very rare that you get to stand on a national podium and recieve a national medal with three of your good mates.
For now its more training with 12 sessions done last week and the same this week in preperation for the Aussie crits when I get home.
Until next time, take care.
(MORE PICTURES TO COME)

Day time television

2008-09-25T08:19:00.000-07:00

A story a local TV channel did on the velodrome in STL featuring yours truly...

Mile High Club

2008-09-15T18:01:00.000-07:00

Hwrya?

I have just arrived back to St.Charlies from Collegiate Track Nationals which was held at Colorado Springs. I was pretty excited to get there for two reasons; firstly my mum was coming over to help celebrate my birthday and watch the racing, and secondly, because Nationals have been my and the teams goal for this season. The last two weeks have been the best preparation I have ever had for any race, we had some excellent sessions on the track, we were getting a rub every day to keep fresh, we had the best equipment and most importantly were focused 100% for the competition. So with that I had no excuse not to perform.

I have to mention the trip out and back, it was the most enjoyable trip I have had away on the bike. Tim Norris earned himself a new nick name in the shape of 'Custard Arm' after some target practice at highway signs and overpasses with any form of ammunition we could find in the 15 seater van.

Colorado Springs sits at about 2500m above sea level and I really noticed the altitude after the first warm up session. First event was the 3km pursuit which I was in the very first heat, I ran a bit slower than what I hoped but It gives me a benchmark for next year I guess. The evening session was rained out by the ever changing Colorado weather and lost a whole day as a result. Friday night saw the sprinters in action. Unfortunately Paddy had a hairbrain decision by the so called officials go against him which saw him finish 7th instead of 5th robbing him of valuable points for the overall point score and a medal. The bad luck extended for Paddy into the Kilo where he pulled his foot automatically putting him out of the race. Everyone knows that the Kilo was Paddy's event and was destined for the podium so this was a crushing time. I was suppose to ride the Kilo but we made the decision that a couple of us would miss the event to save ourselves for the Team Pursuit (4 man team 3km time trial), the decision proved to pay dividends as we finished 4th overall after sitting in 2nd until the final heat. It was pleasing to hear everyone commenting on how smooth and mechanical we looked and only after one weekend practicing for the event I think we will have it dialed for next year.

The last event was the Points Race Heat which was 30 guys and 45 laps of pain. I missed making the final by one spot but achieved the primary goal of getting Paddy through. Lindenwood University had a very successful first Nationals showing as we finished the three days of racing in 5th overall in the Division II competition. With only 5 men this was a solid result and with some females on board next year I reckon we will be giving some of the bigger colleges a run for their money.
My hopes and dreams don't lie on the track but after these past couple of days I have been well and truly been bitten by the the fixed wheel bug and will be making Track Nationals a major goal for next season.

For the next couple of weeks I'm going to give the bike a rest and the local night spots a workout until I start preparing for Bay Crits and trying to get some road base in for next year.

Ciao, Chev.

Gateway Cup

2008-09-03T18:16:00.000-07:00

Woah what a weekend! Yanks love a crit and shit can they ride them too! The whole weekend was fast and held on some technical courses around the St.Louis area. Well I got through the weekend without incident...just. First race about third lap in I almost put it down in front of Owen "the butcher" Belton when I hit a gnarly hole around a corner and then again the next day when my hand slipped of my bars right in front of Toyota United pro, former Australian National Champion and race leader, Henk Vogels. Henk got his revenge a couple of laps later when he put a water bottle down right in my path on the fastest part of the course (Darren the head coach picked it up for me a momento). Despite all these near misses I had a good weekend and was able to roll in 35th, 43rd and 50th out of about 140 guys.

Every day there were awesome crowds and the whole weekend had a festive atmosphere which is something I hadn't expierenced before. We got to race some cool areas around St.Louis ranging from the swanky 'Laffette Square' to the Italian district of STL 'The Hill'. The second day and third day finished with guys from the crowd offering all the Pro1/2 guys beer on completion. It was good to see Henk not only winning the crits but also the race to beers that were on offer from random revelers on the course.

I pulled up feeling as fresh as a daisy after the weekend so hopefully the form is good and now I guess I just have to leave the legs to do the talking. Next Tuesday we leave for Nationals in Colorado which I'm really looking forward to as it has been a main goal for the season and also will be able to see my mum as she is coming over to "root" for Lindenwood in our Collegiate National Cycling debut.
You can keep up to date with all the action from Nationals at cyclingnews.com with my boy Paddy Kilmurray as your correspondent.

Until next time, take care.

Chev.

Bikes, Babes and Gatorade

2008-08-29T12:49:00.000-07:00

Hey all.

This past week has been pretty flat out. Monday was my first official day as a Freshman here at Lindenwood University. So this week I have been getting into the groove of being educated again and just generally finding my way around the campus. Last weekend myself, 'Diamond' Dave, Norris and Ozza made our way up to Indianapolis for some racing. Saturday night we raced at the Major Taylor Velodromes against some really strong competition mainly in the form of Marion College. Those guys ripped our legs off and definately showed us why they are the strongest Collegiate track team in the nation. I skipped the Keiren and pulled out early in the missing out race and managed to finish the scratch race which was an effort in it's self.

Sunday we lined up in the blistering heat for a crit at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. It was weird when we were entering, to my complete asthonishment, I saw, just some normal guy, carrying a rifle around then another guy. I was shitting my pants I thought there was going to be an old fashioned gun slinging show down or something but it turns out it was just the Indy Gun and Knife show phew only some redneck/hillbillies with a shit load of guns. Anyway back to the racing, Diamond Dave did a heap of solid work up front for most of the race to keep it all together for Ozza who was designated leader for the day. With 15 minutes and 3 laps to go Owen broke free and with that power derived from years as a butcher he stayed away from the chasing bunch to the finish and ended up with a time gap of a minute back to the bunch.

This weekend we have the "Gateway Cup" which is a four crit series in St.Louis, and will be the biggest races I have competed in yet and will be the icing on the cake in regards to the form before Nationals. I'm sitting out tonights 70min crit as it starts a 9.30pm and lit only by street lights so me and Ozza are going to eat fairy floss (they call it cotton candy here...?) and watch Norris try and not to become a paraplegic.

Oh some more news, a little off topic though. Me and my dorm mate Paddy have Vanilla Ice of 80's rap fame living next door to us. The set up here with our dorms is that we share the bathroom with the two guys next door to us with a locking door between the two rooms. Anyway this guy is a complete freak! We thought for some time he was some Eastern Block European as he was at the international check in and orientation day, turns out he's just deaf and thus speaks funny and is actually from Illinois. So far some of his oddities have been: trying to drain Hoover Dam every morning at 6.30am by the running taps at full steam, having a bath for an hour at 2am in the morning, smoking cigars whilst wandering aimlessly around the car park, bleaching his hair completely blonde and then asking "is it blonde enough?" and last but not least yesterday morning after waking up and going to answer the call of nature, I walk into the shared bathroom and Vanilla is in front of the mirror, completely nude, purifying himself in some sort of cleansing ritual. As he is deaf he didn't realise I had come in for a couple of seconds and only noticed me when I started laughing so hard that he must have picked up the vibrations with his bat like entani.

Anyway enough about Vanilla. Also if you thought the title of this blog was going to be in some way relevant to what I was going to write you're wrong, just thought it was a sick name for an entry.

Well I gotta go to Home Depot and buy a square mouth shovel to scrape up all the bike riders that are going to crash tonight.

Until next time, take care. Chev.

Missouri State Track Champs

2008-08-19T19:26:00.000-07:00

G'day. Life really hasn't slowed down since I posted last it's been an epic couple of days. Last weekend, as part of the Lindenwood team I competed in the Missouri State Track Championships.

Saturday was the 1000m time trial (Kilo) and the sprints which I managed to finish well down the field in the Kilo and didn't qualify for the sprints which I wasn't to concerned about as most people know I'm not the greatest sprinter to grace a bicycle. Sunday was the endurance events; the 4km pursuit, the points race and scratch race. The pursuit was going well until 4 laps in to the 12 lap event my seat clamp failed and my seat dropped right down so it looked like I was riding a BMX.

After some pretty poor personal performances and mechanicals I was motivated to make up some lost ground and with some awesome work by my team mates Owen and Timmy I was able to slip off the front in the 40 lap points race and win it by 9 points and a lap up. The points race was long, fast and hot but is only an apitiser for the 70 lap points race we will be competing in at nationals. After the points race it was decided we were to call it a day because we had to head back to school for the mandatory 'physical' that all atheletes have to have when we were told that Owen was in contention for the Omnium, which the most points for over all in the weekends competition. So after skulling the cold and very refreshing Budweiser I was enjoying, it was straight to the start line for the scratch race which was shortened to 14 laps. The game plan was for Timmy and I to attack as much as possible making everyone else chase and then for Owen to launch an attack towards the end. The plan worked almost perfectly with Tim and I having done our job Owen launched an attack three laps out which stuck to the end which he was able to roll over in third and in doing so winning the state Omnium Jersey. For the record I spent 200m in the last lap spewing that lovely Budweiser up.

This weekend we are heading to Indianapolis for some track and crit racing, so it should be a serious sharpening up of the legs and a form tester.

Until next time, take care.

Ciao, Chev.

Living The (American) Dream

2008-08-15T17:15:00.000-07:00

Hi all. Under the pressure of my coach I will be keeping a blog on my activities whilst in the U S of A.

I arrived in the little college town of St.Charles, Missouri on the 7th of August where I will be studying at Lindenwood University for the next 4 years. St.Charles is such a beautiful little town situated right on the Missouri River. The real feature of the town is the main street (called Main Street funnily enough) it is cobbled and tree lined, flanked on either side with cafes, bars and resturants. I have been blown away by Lindenwood so far, the grounds and buildings are beautiful. Our dorm rooms are quite big and I'm lucky enough to be sharing with fellow Australian and HC4L Paddy Kilmurray, who Im sure will be mentoring me over the next couple of years.

The roads over here are much different from the roads back in Aus, they are all in emaculate condition and most have shoulders. A 15 minute ride from our dorm and you are in corn fields, complete with real life Hill Billies in those big old ford trucks and 15 minutes in the other direction you are on a bitching bike path that goes through woods and past a lake. The velodrome is about a 15 minute drive away which is handy for training for Collegiate Nationals which are coming up in September and is my real focus for this year. I have 2 days of track racing this weekend before going on camp out to rural Missouri.

I have to fly now going down to Main Street there is some sort of festival happening down there, Im guranteed lots of beer and lots of women.

Chev.

What I'm listening to.