Day time television

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

Mile High Club

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

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

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

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

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.