Bell Jam

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

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

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

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

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'

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

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