Belgium part 2

So after having some time to have a look around Oudenaarde I think I can say I really like this place. Everything here seems to be awesome from the old buildings to the scenery when you're out riding.

The Ghent velodrome

Since my last update I've be able to get quite a few track sessions on the Ghent velodrome and even one session on the new indoor velodrome at Roubaix France. My times in my efforts have been progressing well and the speed is coming fast, over the last couple of sessions especially I've been achieving pb's in the effort types which is really encouraging 2 weeks out from worlds.

The rest of my training has been pretty standard outside of the track work, with some gym sessions and a couple of small road rides just to keep the legs ticking over. Defiantly a highlight since my last update was when the sprint boys and myself when for a road ride and ended up coming back into town along a bike path next to one of the many canals here. The views that you got were quite cool seeing the barges going up and down the canal and also the back drop of the scenery.

Monument at the gate of the
old Roubaix velodrome

The highlight of the trip thus far though has to be getting to not only go to France but to see the old outdoor Roubaix velodrome that hosts the finish of one of the biggest classics races every year Paris-Roubaix and it being on my birthday to made it extra special.

The old Roubaix Velodrome

On one of the rest days, the team went down to the Flanders cycling museum. We got to see the history of another of the big classics races that is raced just before Paris-Roubaix, that being the tour of Flanders a race that goes up the famous Koppenberg climb that I talked about in my previous update. After the short video we were able to walk around  and look at pieces of memorabilia that they had on display as well as other things such as route maps and a wall that was filled up with every winner of the race.

One of the old team cars used in the Tour of Flanders

As for what I'm up to for the next wee while, I'll be continuing on with the hard work at the track and in the rest of my training. I'll let you all know how that's going next week!

Belgium

Oudenaarde my home for the next 3 weeks

After 30 odd hours of travelling I arrived in my home for the next few weeks Oudenaarde Belgium. I passed the time on the flights, mostly by sleeping but also the every few hourly stretching session at the back of the plane kept my sanity. My first impressions of the place were just simply in ore of all the old buildings and the scenery.

The first few days training wise have been very easy and just really to get the body use to training again after the long travel time. It was certainly an eye opener to ride on the right hand side of the road instead of the left, but I eventually got the hang of it. Defiantly the highlight so far of the trip was being able to ride up the famous cobbled climb Koppenberg which about 2 km down the road from where I'm staying. The climb is one of the main climbs in the tour of Flanders, one of the biggest one day races in the world. It gets up to 25% gradient at some points which is massive to ride a bike up. Below is a video that I found online of climbing up Koppenberg

One of the many rooms in the seeming endless bike shop

The town itself of Oudenaarde is quite a cool little town, the town square has a very old cathedral at one end and a towering castle like building at the other end, there are lots of little cafe type shops dotted all around the town and the occasional bike shop too which are good to have a look through when you have a spare few minutes, although one bike shop that I went into was a labyrinth of different rooms all interconnecting with each other that seemed endless

First ride in Belgium

The first day on the track is tomorrow and I can't wait to ride on the famous Gent velodrome which hosts one of the biggest 6 day races in the year. I'll let you all know how it goes!

Europe bound!!!

Not long now till I fly off to Belgium to start my final preparation for this year world champs. I can’t wait to get on the plane and know that all of the hard work over the last few months is just weeks away from hopefully paying off.

Awesome shot of me starting out of the gate

My training recently has been going well with me reaching pb’s in speeds during roller sprints and in powers during efforts on the track. Some of my track sessions have been hampered due to the weather being freezing cold and raining which pushed me indoors for those sessions making them become days on the erg which tended to result in me not in not the best shape afterwards.

Powering into a start

 Along with my track and erg sessions I’ve been hitting Les Mills in town for some big gym sessions, these have mostly consisted of heavy lifting. My weights in these heavy lifts have been improving steadily recently and I’m buzzing about that as I’m feeling stronger than ever which hopefully will transfer itself over onto the bike come race day!

Aside from the aspect of going over to Europe to train and race at the world champs I’m especially looking forward to getting see and experience some new countries that are so richly entrenched in the history of cycling and to just have fun with the boys

While I’m away ill hope to keep everyone updated on here, so check back regularly to see what I’ve been up to

Another amazing shot thanks to Hannah

Also huge thanks to Hannah Bayard for doing a bit of a photo shoot for me out at the track last week, check her out at http://www.hannahbayardphotography.com/

Training Update

..So it’s been a little while since my last update, but I’ve been hard at work training and making improvements on and off the bike.

I recently had a week long training camp down in Invercargill, it was the first one for the Junior Worlds team as a whole and we achieved a lot as a team on and off the bike during that week, The camp was more of a skills focused camp for the sprinters that a traditional camp where we go and absolutely smash ourselves, so for me it was great fun to do stuff we wouldn’t normally do for a change.

Flying efforts on a beautiful day at the track

Defiantly the highlight for me was on the first day the four of us sprinters rolled up to the fence for our first effort and were told to turn around and ride around the track backwards. It has to be the most freaky thing I’ve ever done on a track, as your mind gets used to riding around the track in one direction and the steepness of the banking doesn’t seem to correlate in your head how steep it really is so it doesn’t faze you, where as riding the track backwards almost has the opposite effect on your brain, the track seems way steeper than 45 degree banking that it actually is.

We also had an amazing team building day that I think everyone got a lot out of it. The exercises were different and I think that helped everyone to enjoy it that much more as it was a real boys day out on a farm and the challenges were physically and also mentally hard as you had to really think about what you were doing.

At the ball with Liv

My training outside of the camp has been going really well, its consisted of lots of gym and erg stuff, but also we’ve managed to keep using the track as the weather has been quite good to which has defiantly helped to keep me motivated as I love to just be able to get out on the track and to just do good hard efforts.

Outside of cycling I really haven’t had much time to be a normal person. I’ve been busy being a top level cyclist as well as trying to be a top student, something that can be difficult to manage at some points. I’ve been lucky that my coach Murray has been a tad lenient lately and let me go to a school ball which was good fun and it was great to have a night off being a cyclist and a student!

Roller sprints, always good fun!

I recently got a pair of Adidas Supernova riding glasses from Adidas Eyewear, I absolutely love them and they are the best pair of riding glasses I’ve ever worn! So if anyone is looking for a new pair I recommend getting a pair.

In the near future I’m heading back down to Invercargill for another camp over Queens

Birthday weekend before I head off to Belgium for worlds build up, but I’ll be updating you all on my progress before then! See ya!

A big thank you to everyone!

So with the news today that i will be travelling across to the other side of the world to a town called Glasgow  in Scotland to compete in the World Champs, I thought I would upload this video that Buzz(Justin Evans) gave me of my first round ride in the Gold medal ride off at the nationals for the sprints. It's my way of thanking everyone who has helped me and supported me over the years that hasn't been able to watch me race often, I hope you enjoy!

Nationals wrap up

Nationals! What a ride that was! After the problems of spraining my ankle less than a week out from racing my nationals was amazing.

It all started the first day with the kilo, probably my favorite event just because of the sheer brutality of it. I was off in the last heat and in the front straight. My start wasn’t the greatest as my rear wheel spun at the start which took away my momentum meaning that the first pedal stoke was almost useless. I quickly regrouped though and was soon going all out. Its funny because when I’m racing I never hear anything, the crowd, my coach, nothing, but the one thing I heard the entire ride was the commentator saying “he’s flying, he’s absolutely flying!” this gave me that little bit extra that I needed to be able to give it that little extra to push on. I blew to bits on the last lap, going through the last corner I was starting to see 3 black lines and my legs were shutting down. But I was able to hold on just enough to secure the bronze medal and a new PB of 1.04.607 minutes.

My coach Murray any myself after my
win in the sprints

The next day was keirin day. It started off well, I won my heat and progressed straight into the semi where I had the dream run off second wheel and won the semi. The final however was a different matter, I became stuck on the outside with two laps to go and it was all over from there. I managed to fight on to a 4^th place, but it was gut wrenching to know that I had the speed to win it and to get one spot off the podium gave me motivation for the following day.

That following day was sprints day. I qualified second with a 10.767 second 200 meter time trial. My first round ride was good; I controlled the race and was able to win the race comfortably. That night in the semi I had to verse my team mate Quinn form the youth Olympics, I rode both races from the front and rode it to my strengths. I managed to make it through to the gold medal ride in two rides against Quinn, but they were extremely close rides. The final I had Jem another team mate from the Youth Olympics. The first ride I knew that I could get him if I forced him into a mistake which is what I did. Coming through to the bell I let Jem try and push me up to the fence but at the same time I slowed down the pace just enough to be able to get an opening underneath him but without him realizing it and it worked. I shot underneath him and bet him to the bell and ultimately won that ride. The second ride was similar from the first with Jem taking the front and me in 2^nd wheel, as we exited the back straight on the 2^nd lap I tried to draw Jem up the track and as he came up I dove underneath him and opened up the sprint. I just edged him out in a close finish but it was enough for me to win the 2^nd ride and the title. This was my first national title on the track and I was over the moon with it.

Me making the decisive move in the first round of
the gold medal ride in the sprints

The final day of the national champs saw me line up in the team sprint. I rode from second wheel and after a number of false starts and crashes in our heat we finally got our team sprint away and qualified fastest with a 47.955 second team sprint. That night in the final we rode off against Tasman we won the final and bettered our time to 47.520 seconds. With that I had my second title of the nationals.

I returned home to the week after racing the Auckland champs for a bit of fun, I walked away with 3 gold’s from 3 events, the kilo, keirin and the sprint which I was stoked with.

I have to say a huge thank you to my coach Murray for getting me into some amazing form for the nationals; I couldn’t have done it without him. Also thank you to two guys who helped me out massively at nationals by taking the time out on race days to give me advice and tactics that ultimately helped me to win the national title in the sprints. Those two guys are Ethan Mitchell and Sam Webster

Going around the final banking going full noise
in the gold medal ride of the sprints

I now have a few days left off the bike before I start back into some serious training. My next event will hopefully be the junior worlds in August, but I have to wait for a nervous couple of weeks to find out if I’m going.

Australian Youth Olympics Wrap Up

What a blast that was! Sydney was more than what I expected; the whole experience was completely mind blowing. It was nice for a change to be in a team that wasn’t just cyclist, their was 100’s of other kiwi athletes that were competing in a vast array of sports.

The opening ceremony was an amazing feeling, just hearing New Zealand read out over the speakers in the arena and hearing the crowd roar has to be one of the greatest moments of my life, from what I heard NZ was second only to Australia in the roar scale but not by much!

Me on the front during my lap of the team sprint final

The racing on Dunc Gray which was the track used for the 2000 Sydney Olympics was spectacular and for the small team we had over there, we defiantly left our mark. First up was team sprint day. I warmed up with the boys incase something happened with warm up and then I would be shuffled into the team. The boys did an exceptional job in qually and got into the gold medal ride off. So at this stage I change down my gear to warm down and started my warm down rountine on the rollers, but then with maybe 15 minutes to the gold medal ride our coach JR came over and said stop drinking your protein shake. I initially though what am in trouble for? He then came back over to me and said you’re in; it was amazing that I would get to race. I did feel for Callum as I thought he deserved to ride the final, but he had done a stella job in qually so he wasn’t being replaced more rested for the rest of the week. The final when well, Quinn pulled out an 18.2 start lap which is incredibly quick, so he gapped me at the start and I used him as a carrot to chase for the start lap. This meant that I did a 500 metre time trial which was a lot more painful than what I remembered it to be. In the end we were beaten by 0.1 of a second by the Aussies.

The next day was kerin day. It was going okay till the semi final, I wasn’t decisive as I should have been, it was a mistake that unfortunately cost me a spot in the final. In the 7-12^th I learnt from my mistakes and fixed it, however the result didn’t come.

The team after racing
hanging out in Darling Harbour

Sprints day was next, the 200 metre time trial went okay, I did a 10.799 which is the 2^nd fastest time that I’ve ever done which I was happy with but I would have liked to go into the 10.6’s. I qualified 5^th. I drew a Malaysian who I rode a decisive sprint against and rode him on my hip to the finish. In the quarters I drew Jem, its always harder to race against your team mate, especially Jem as we have been at training camps together for just under a year now and know how each other races. The first ride I laid off too much and couldn’t come around him. In the second ride I time the run at him much better and he pipped me by a tire in the end, I was disappointed as I wanted to be in the finals the next day but I was happy that at least a team mate went through and not someone else.

After the last day of racing we all went into darling harbour and saw the world’s largest rubber duck! Jem, Chad and myself went on a racing simulator. It was extremely realistic and initially we had a practice around Bathurst which was awesome to drive that track as it’s my favorite track. We then did a 5 lap race on teratonga since Jem was the only one of us that knew the track. I was leading till 2 to go when I braked too late for the last corner and spun spectacularly off the track.

So after all that fun, it’s time for nationals and boy is that going to be a blast. I cant wait to rip it up on my favorite track in the world, invers!