Been a long time since i raced an open, and i remember why you need to try and get a good grading from the Handicapper. Well i was put in with many of the A grade riders from Thursday Nights at DISC in the likes of Turbo, Mr Poole, Peter Ganns, and the list goes on. This wqas ment to be a D Grade field!!

So i raced 1 Scratch race and 1 Handicap. There was another Scratch to come at the end of the night but i will get into why i didn't do that later. So from the gun inthe scartch the heat was on and i was out the back pretty quick. I think i hung in there for about 4 of the 8 laps. They were moving and i just couldn't hold the back of the field. The handicap i was given 240 over the 2000 mtr distance and thought that was pretty fair in these kinda fields . I would like to that Jamie Goddard for the great push as i was in the first 4 riders and held that position for my turn on the front. We were hammering along and again the actual pace of the riders was to much for me to bear. I lasted the first 2 laps of 4 and then i was out the back again, trying to hold on and not get lapped.

The reason i didn't stay for more racing, well there were a few really bad crash's in the junior grades and the racing was running really late. My handicap heat was run at 10 ish pm at night!! They had to cancell a whole set of heats and finals for all the riders which was a shame.

So at about 10:30 pm i  went back to the Caravan park to my wife and kids for a good nights sleep.

It was a great experiance and next year i think i might try and do the full week of them.

Racing Thursday nights at DISC has been great for me as of late. I have been slowly creeping to the fronts of the field most weeks, and keeping up with a few of the faster legs in D grade. Over the last few weeks it has been getting faster and faster with the "Ring In's" down for Revolution or the Christmas Carnivals that are happening very soon.

I managed to enter myself into Bendigo on the 30th and have been focusing solely on getting my legs ready for the Handicaps. I have been doing LOTS AND LAOTS of 60 and 90sec MAX Efforts to get the power more linear and hopefully increasing my sprint length.

With my first ever place (3rd in the Motor Pace) at a Thursday Night race at DISC, I think i might be just about to peak at the right time. I feel really good and have kept up the training pressure, as for some reason I respond better training hard and raceing than raceing at the end of a recovery.

So i now look forward to racing Bendigo with the knowledge i might be a chance to make my final!!!!!!!

PS: I now to have a secret weapon!!!

For those at the Metros on Saturday and Sunday, i wish you all good luck and fast legs. I am going to try and get there Sunday after work for a bit of a look.

Well today was the first time i have ridden into work for a long while. I took it real easy (well as easy as you can in a 20 knot head wind) and managed to do  2hr 20min for the 40 k's to Preston from Che Larkin.

On checking my data for the ride an average of 18.7 k/hr and a HR of 147 means i was just over my E1 HR for the ride. Pretty good for a 99kg sprinter who has struggle for time on the bike with sickness and a bad knee.

Now i look forward to a few more rides like that so as to improve my racing. Now that my Power and Strength are up where i like, i just have to get that endurance going.

Well it's Thursday and that means DISC is hot with some very dedicated riders, and the pace was on in all grades.

As usual i roll up for my D grade racing and gave myself a bit of a surprise tonight. I managed to keep up the pace in the Scratch race and found i was off the back with only 2 to go. Not bad for me. The Points is always something i really don't like. This time i found myself on the front with 2 to go to the first sprint. Well the rest really wrote itself, a pair tried to have a go but i just kept powering on and took the firt sprint. I was holding in there but fell off the back not long after. The last race of the night was the Motor Pace. I should be pretty good here, as it is a race that sort of suits the Sprinters. Tonight i found myself at 4 to go having to swing up and sit on the back. To many surges and i just could hold my position, plus the pace was pretty high.

So another night and some better results for me. I know that i am stronger than ever, my power is really good, now i just have to work on my endurance a bit.

Well i had my firs ride at DISC for the first time in a long time. I managed to almost finnish each race. I missed the last three laps if the Scratch Race and the Points Race. I managed to finnish the motorpace on the lead lap.

Not bad for a guy that has done absolutely NO ENDURANCE WORK at all on the bike.

Well as you all may well have heard, there were some records set at Spin last Tuesday Night.

I set a PB on the Power Tap and tried to calibrate it to the Kurt Kinetic Computer as they both show the power output in Watts for the rider. They are pretty close to each other (about 3-5% difference) which gives me a great idea when i am training on my own on the trainer.

So lets talk about the PB. Carl and i have been working on Strength and Power alot as of late. We have smashed ourselves into the ground with weights and standing starts, as well as short MAX efforts with a few F100 and F200's thrown in to keep things going along. Now we are kicking along with the enduro section of our prep and find a few extra K's of E1 to drop a litle of the "Winter Form" we are both holding. I am trying to keep "Fresh" for round 1 so will take it pretty easy the week before.

Well on Tuesday night i topped out at 1420 watts MAX POWER! I have struggled for weks and have now seen that i am capable of punching out what it takes to get gowing FAST. I realy surprised my self and those around me with what i was able t get out. I thought i might get 1300 by the sprint series, but 1400 + gives me a bit of an edge, and a great lead into the summer and the mythical 1500 i want to get to.

So in 4 weeks time i get to see if i am ready for B Grade like i had hoped, or will C Grade be my home for a little while longer??

I have been chatting to suppliers, friends, and enemies alike. With time my ultimate enemy, i need to get on the bike to do all my strength work. Power and strength= quite fast fat man!! But like i said i need to do pretty much everything on the bike so i need more gear inch's.

The major problem is my knee, and how much pressure it can take before it say's NO. I still have a bit of a struggle at the gym with squats, but can manage a Dead Lifts and some power lifts if i take a lttle care. I try and gget some upper body stuff done but doing basic chin ups and pull ups. At 97KG i really don't need weights, just body weight is fine.

So where to from here........... Well i have found the biggest possable gear i can find for Sunday to do Standing Starts over 1 lap. 54:12 will give me about 121.5 inch gear. That's only until i can get my grubby little hands on a 55 tooth chain ring................

DISC training was something of a fizzer for me tonight. I have been struggling with my knee as of late, and have had a bit of a cold i can't get past as well. But even though  i have had a struggle, i have been kicking along training as hard as possable. My strength has been getting much better, and my power is strating increase to a pont where i am happy with. I have started to get alot faster over the last few weeks, now i am working on getting my sprint a bit longer.

Tonight i was starting out the big gear standing starts in "Insanity" gear. For those that look at gear charts, 110.1 or 53:13 was what i was using tonight. I could manage a top speed of 48.9 k/hr over 125 mtrs. I am looking forward to chase out some form maths to be able to work out RPM and power over the distance.

I look forward to next weeks 1 lap standings. Will give me a better gauge of what i am capable of.  

I would like to thank John Nicholson for taking the training session tonight. He has a wealth of knowlege and loves to pass it on to younger, and older riders a like. We had a great time and i hope everyone enjoyed the small game at the end.

Thanks Everyone.

DISC on Sunday produced a few mixed results. I managed to keep Dino at bay with Some very good efforts and a reasonably fast F100 time to boot. Been having trouble with my knee as of late and managed to get a bit of a head cold, and even with those problems i have been able to stick very quick times over the 100 and 200 distances.

So i look forward to the Summer season and a few of the longer handicap races as well as the BSSS series.

I should be flying!!!

Carl and i have been working on "Bike Strength" for me at the moment as it is really ahrd for me to get to the Gym and train properly. I am waiting to get the stuff out of my garrage to be able to set up my own small Gym to get this done, but alas i have to wait a little longer to get this done.

With me putting some seriously good times down at DISC, it's really weird that when we are at spin on Tuesday i seem to be struggleing to make any inroads on the Power Meter to make the results i am getting look right. If i could get a pair of these SRM Track Cranks it might make a bit of difference in the abillity to get data. I might even try and get a pair for the Roadie

So all i need to do is keep punching out geat numbers on the track and do what i can at Spin and see where the new season takes me.

I have been keeping an eye on my times, and we had a crack at a few flying 200's bbehind the motorbike tonight. I have been fiddleing with gear ratios and spinning my legs like a top.

I have been running between an 87 to 90 inch gear when riding as of late. I have been getting stronger as i have gone back to they way i was doing things as i changed some stuff and went backwards for a while. Now i seem to be back on track.

I managed a PB of 13.66 tonight over the 200 with a 14.02 for the second time round. this gives me so much confidence, and also props up my ego a little. I have been feeling a little down as of late, and thought i was never going to get where i want. But now i know it's just a matter of time....

Tonight at DISC i managed to take 2 Flying 100's within .2 of a second of each other. I am trying to get my F100 in the 6.5 kinda range, and at the moment im in the 6.9 range.  Thats pretty quick for a second year rider, and i am kinda proud of getting close to my wanted time before the season starts. If i can keep my head down and bum up, i should be able to get to my goal before the season starts.

Training gets harder and more intense as we get along. The thing that keeps me going is the wish to be faster and get to the Masters..

Dreams and aspriations come in small really easily managed proportions. When they are to grand, it is to easy to clobber them and have it all go dead silent on you.

I have taken a closer look at the way i train, eat, live, and look at my rideing and have decided to do the right thing. That's make it as fun as i like it, and understand that i have limitations. But these problems, thoughts, dreams, are only suggestive and i know i can work through them. I need to take a step forward and understand i am able to win races.

I have been looking trying my hand at a few things, and    one might be Masters in 2009.

There are many things going on in my life at the moment.

I am looking at doing a few more things this year, and training always takes a lot of time.  With all this no spare time that i have i need to race, train, live, love, and work. The strangest thing though, is that all these things seem to run hand in hand when i ride my NEW TOY!! Yes i am the owner of a full carbon Hillbrick track bike.

When i get to ride it the first time on Sunday at DISC, i will let you all know how cool and fun it is to rde. My New Hillbrick Toy!!

With the BBN Track Champs just days away, i have finaly draged myself from be where i have been hibernating for the last 5 days with something like the Flu. I have only just recently been out and about with the general public because i have not been really able to leave my bed or even stay awake for more than an hour at a time.

I have had probably one of the worst years i can put to record. I have missed a fair amount of racing, had very interupted preperations for all my races, and really have taken to heart and felt quite down about my own performances and abillities.

I will try again to have a bit of a ride tomorrow just to get the legs turning. The Club Champs were something i really wanted to perform well in, and i know i will have to write that off for this year. I will need to put in a strong TSSS final round and see what i can achieve over the winter. I have some big plans for Summer 09, and have some really big races i want to be able to ride.