Well I was thanked at the end of the evening of racing for "one of the loadest and most exciting D Grade races".

I started out in C Grade, but there seemed to be something different about the grade. They were absolutely Stomping and it was some of the fastest racing I have seen in a long time. I was asked if I wanted to drop back to D Grade and I gladly took the oppurtunity for something a little more civilaised.

The Points was as I expected it to be. I rode as hard and long as I could, and kept up pretty well compared to how I was riding. I finnished the race well within the riders, and not to far really from getting into the points if I could have gotten a bit closer to the front earliier.

But that brings us to the Motor Pace. I have ridden many of these, but this was a very different race. It started out as normal. The bike pulled out into the throng of riders waiting to see who gets on the bike first. I was right at the back of the field as I did a pretty sneaky head count and saw that if I started last, I would be on the bike with 3 laps to go and in a very good position. That was the plan, and like all plans it went wrong...........................

With about 6 laps to go, i started to notice that we were slowing ddown a little. A gap had started to appear 2 back from the bike, and it was getting bigger by the second. By the time we got around to 5, the gap was at least 40 mtrs and getting bigger and I started to panic. I shout at the riders in front to go around, or et the girl off the front who was slowing us down. All of a sudden my call to arms got everyone going. We had to bridge the gap and, get back into the fight. I managed to get a pretty good wheel and held it rigt tiill we caught the 2 on the bike. 4 laps to go and i was in 5th wheel. The rider on the bike pulled off and left me in 4th wheel with half a chance at 4 to go, then for some reason the next rider pulled off and i was in 3rd wheel with three to go. It was then that I thought not what position I could finnish, I new I could win. 2 to go and the bike is still kicking along at around 40K/hr, and I was looking at where and when I was going to make my move.

Bike pulls of and we head to the bell. Out of the first turn the move from the second rider dose not come. He simply moves to the side and up to the blue line, and leaves me a big hole. I start stomping on the pedals, looking to make a move in the turn for home. I make the gap and I am on the leader and still have a little ground to make up. As we go through the back turn I hear the screaming and cheering urging me on to the finnish. I keep stomping the pedals up and down as fast as I could, making sure I was almost on the red line and leaving enough room in case soemthing went wrong.

But that never happend. I hit the line a wheel in front to screaming and cheering in the front straight. It was one of the best races I have not only riddden, but one of the best Club Races seen at DISC for a while.

The hardest $10 I have ever earnt.....................................

Well after only three or four days off the bike, the decission was made. I am putting cash away now, and slowly picking up bits and pieces i will need to do the WHOLE X-MAS CARNIVAL CIRCUIT!!

For those that have never done it, or seen it, it begins in Horsham and finnish's in Shepparton about 4 or 5 days later. The racing is fast and hard, but you really need to be able to ride a very strong handicap and that's where my focus lies now.

I have started to do all the BASE work now. This is the hardest thing, beacause it is all done on race gears and done over 2-5 min intervals. I am starting to feel a bit flat already and it has only been 2 weeks!! The bonus is that when it comes to move focus, i will be absolutely firing and ready to go o the next level.

So off i go back to the Road and when it is to much the Ergo will get a workout...

With another year of racing almost over, it's time to think about some x training and where and what i want to do next year.

So after Shepparton on the 21st, i will take 2 weeks to decide what it is i am looking to do, but i think there is a few more K's i will need to do...

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!!!

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.  

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.

It has taken quite a while and with a few misshaps i think i'm ready to take on the riders at BBN Velo again. Times have been a little ruff for me at the minute and i think m y mind has been a little if not a lot preoccupied with other things. Time has been pf the essence, and yet i am still finding it hard to hit my straps.

I had a disastorus ride in Shepparton that has really put my racing and training back to a place i dont like, and that's back to the start. I was ment to be a social ride and something a few of us ABOC'ers were going to do for fun. I went for a training ride on Saturday to meet Bev on the road somewhere in between Cobram and Shepparton. Here is a condensed list of what happened in numerical order.

1) Ran off the road by locals and binned it in the thick gravel.

2) Swoop by a magpie for about a 12 k stretch.

3) Turned onto the Murray Goulburn freeway and was swooped by another bird for 6 k.

4) Had a snake take a liking to my shoes and give chase for 5-10 mtrs.

5) Had a puncture 9 k out of Tallygaroopna.

6) Forgot to bring money and ranout of drink just 6 k from Shep and had to stop a IGA for toilets and water. Thanks to Bev for Lollies as i even forgot food when i took a closer look.

So as you can see it was a kinda eventful ride to Shep and i was glad it was over when we got in. Had dinner and left Bev and Rob at the caravan park looking to the morning for the ride. When we got back to the farm i noticed that my knee was a little swollen and a small lump had  made it self home just under my knee. So thought i would see how this goes and make a decission in the morning.

Well with a bigger lump i was off to Cobram Hospital to see if there was anything they could do. Two X Rays and an ultrasound said i should keep off it for a couple of days and if it doesn't go down i will need to drop back in to the hospital or an Arthriscope. NO MORE SURGERY was the only thing i was thinking and came back to Melbourne as the lump seemed to go down almost overnight (OK it was still there 2 days later but was almost gone and was not there 4 days later).

So i still had a little pain and was a bit stiff so i went and got a massage telling the guy i had a fall and he should be a little gental on me. After about 10 minuets he managed to pop my shoulder back in (i didn't even think it was out) and felt a little more pain. More and more pain came in the dyas after so off to the Physio i went (on the recomendation of a few others) and he couldn't really find anything major untill we had the ultrasound and found the fracture in my Collar Bone!

So now over 3 weeks after the Shepparton debarkle i am almost fit (nothing hurting from broken or bashed) enough to have my first real race back. 

I had a bit of a ride this morning down to Glenvale for a look, then up to see my girls have a hit of tennis then home. 25 k with no pain in my shoulder but a little in the knee, but thats only because i have had trouble riding because of the other pains and it will come good over the next few days of training.

My Treck Summer Sprint Series was a fizzer as i could barely hold the bars and could only muster a 14.6 so a little dissapointed is an understaement. I know i can go alot faster and think the December edition will be a totaly different scenerio. 

Well i sit here now at 2.35 pm on a Sunday afternoon replaceing carbs lost from a massive days riding. When i talk massive i mean MASSIVE.

I have had a huge weekned riding at Blackburn Velo and Glenvale and all i can think is " So that's what is's like".

Now let me take you all back a little ways so you can understand why this is such an important day for me and a huge step in my life.

On the 18th of May in 2005 at 5.05 pm a lovely lady in a Commodore full of kids decided to cut me off on the Monash Fwy while i was riding my Motorcycle home from work. After i had some great guys drag me off the road; and i thanked the driver in the middle lane for not running me over; i was taken to hospital. After X-Rays i found out i had a Plateau Fracture of the Tibia and may need a couple of operations to correct this. After the operation i was told it was quite successful and i should walk OK but will more than likely limp for the rest of my life.

All i wanted to do was crawl into a ball a not exist after this news. I was so depressed i realy needed something to take my mind off it all.

Then i woke up to my self and thought "This is your last chance fat man. You need to get out there and do it" so thats exactly what i did.

I was a reasonable juiour rider when i was young, but found the allure of the "Dark Side" to tempting and gave it all up. I think that it dissapointed my family as much as it did me over time. After the accident, and when i was able to start to walk again i decided then i was going to ride again. Now not just ride, but really go for a big shake at the thing. So grossly over weight i started to do spin class's with Carl. I found not only how un fit i was but how hard this was going to be.

So lets fast forward all the boring bits of me not even being able to finnish and E Garde Scratch race and being lapped by the E grade bunch at Glenvale as that would just bore you all stupid.

So now i am 30kg lighter (yes thats 30kg!) and think i have jumped a bridge in not only my racing but life in general. I have learned that you only get there from hard work and persistance, and if you don't try you will never know. I have tried on many occasions and failed, but those failures are only the stepping stones to winning.  

Every time i win i do think "So that's what it's like" and reflect on how hard i have worked to get there. It makes the winning so much sweeter.

So now i prepare for the 2007-2008 Track season as a C Grade rider and D Grade as a road rider. This will bring new challanges forward but the key points are still the same: Listen to you coach and body, Work at getting fitter and understanding the races you ride, and most importantly Have Fun because riding should not be a chore it should be enjoyed.

I know it has been a while since i have put anything in here but i have been very busy with things at home; work; training; and racing. Things have been hectic and i have that time a quite a precious commodity.

Lets talk Track racing first.

My apperances at the BBN Velo have been numerous and prostigous at times. I have tasted the highs of being the  winner and the stinging heart ache of defeat. But over all i don't suck any more and think the C Grade riders better start looking over there shoulders. I have managed to find that i am now kinda inbetween the D Grade and C Grade riders at the moment so thats a big push from not even being able to finnish an E Grade race. My dreams of knocking on the B Grade door next year are looking quite good.

My performance at the Club Champs was nothing but surpriseing not only to me, but Carl and the other on lookers probably never thought i was able to do what i did. I managed 4th fastest in the flying 200. at a 14.44 that is the fastest i have ever gone and this PB will stand for a while. If i can get it down to a 14 flat for next season i will be very happy. My race for third against Carl was something i think we will both remember. He was better than me on the day, but i made sure i kept him honest! As for the other races i managed to do the best i can and thats all i can do. It was great to think that if i was on slightly bigger gear i might have been able to stay with them a little better in the scratch race.

Now i get ready for the 2007/2008 season and i am looking forward to the New Years carnival at Shepparton. That's My Goal Now.

Now it's all other riding stuff.

I have been riding to Glenvale and racing then taking a quick training ride after. This has been something i thought i would never be able to do, and now i am doing 60-80 k on a Sunday! Glenvale is a kind of race that i think i could do better at over time, and time is something i have on my side. I look forward to riding there every Sunday morning now and cant wait to get going. I try and creep up the K's every week to increase the time and distance i do.

With the way i am riding at the moment i will be doing the Philip Island Road Race! I will go and throw my hat in the ring and ride the dam thing as fast and smart as i can. Working for the other ABOC'ers or riding for my self. It will be the biggest and best test of my Race Skills and abillity, and when i complete it i will smile slightly and think to myself "Now Your A Cyclist".

Well Saturday turned out kinda nice for the weather but the track felt kinda weired. I don't quite know what it was, but the gear i was riding (86) felt a little to big and i wasn't feeling real comfortable. I had a few laps on the warm up and was tossing up if i should change down a gear or not and the racing had already started.

As the given rule is we had the Scratch race first. I pulled out a few earlie peels and found my self in about 4th wheel coming up to a lap to go. When the jumped i went as well with a pretty good stamp of authority and managed to take the long way round for second. I wasn't that far from first, but the traffic and having to take the blue line around them all soaked up some time.

Next was the Handicap. I am starting to considermyself not a bad mid-marker now off 90 mtrs and being able to wind up enough to take second. I almost had third as i eased up a bit before the line because i was buggered doing so much work to gwet around everyone, but put in a little bit more sprint to keep them at bay. It was a pretty good race for me as i was shouting instructions to the juniors and the responded as i had hoped. They answered my calls of "fill the gap" with "No" or "In" when they were able to. It was great that everyone worked together and tried to catch the front markers.

We had a Motor Pace next and i really struggled to just keep going at this race. I took the bike from the start and really should have done 2 laps on the front to recover from the effort just getting on the bike, but peeled after the first and found my self dropping off the back and not able to hold them. I didn't come last, but still could have put in a better effort from hindsight.

So another Saturday of racing and another week of getting closer to the top of D Grade. I have given myself until the end of this year to make C Grade and think if my results keep going the way they are, i will start the 07/08 season in C Grade.

Well i had my first ride on DISC and i can say that for the first time in a while, i have never been that scared and excited at the same time.

I havn't had those kinda feelings rideing a bike for many years. The last time would have been when i was about 13 and first rode at the old (if i remember correctly) board track in Tassie. The steep banking, the smell of the timber, the sound of tires "sequelching" as you slow down that little to much on the banked corners. You can't explain how wonderful and free it feels riding on that kind of surface and at the same time how terrifying the banked corners look as you enter them.

I know there will be a time of adjustment for me as it has been many years since i have ridden such a beast, but i really look forward to this challange.