Summer at home

First off all, let me apologise for my lack of writing and keeping up the blog over NZ summer/US winter. I've been in my beautiful homeland of New Zealand, pictured below, underneath our glorious nation's flag. In New Zealand I had very limited access to Internet, so was unable to keep up with my blogs. But now I'm back in the great US of A I should be able to get a regular feed going.

New Zealand is a bit different from America. The US usually has a lot more diabetes related advertisements than NZ, but there still some gems in Auckland. The one below is my favourite, on the corner of Harris Rd and Te Rakau Dr.

But upon returning home I did get a chance to do some racing. About 2 weeks back home and I was racing in the Tour of Southland. This was my final race for the year, and not an easy one to finish up with. Despite the predominately flat course, Southland is made very difficult by the dead roads and shit weather. Riding all day in the gutter, the race being blown apart 10min into a flat stage or struggling to keep the speed in double digits on the flat aren't that uncommon for this race: fun times. This year I rode with the Fulton Hogan team, and rode alright, but not brilliant. Below is a photo of me in a piss poor effort in the prologue.

Though my performance did get better after that first morning stage, the weather certainly didn't. Though that didn't get us down. Below is a photo of two rather happy teammates Jack and Josh. This was after a morning stage of wind, rain, snow and hail. Jack was happy since he just destroyed the stage, and josh was still warm with his 7 layers on.

Southland ended up ok in the end, but the important thing was that it ended. It was then followed by 3 weeks of no riding, and possibly a little bit too much alcohol consumption. After the tour I just hung round the South Island for a bit, making a nuisance of myself. I was hoping to enjoy the warming weather while I made my way back up north, but as you can see from the photo below at Punakiki, I didn't get too much of that.

I started back training with the Enduro Round Taupo. 320km is not an easy was to start back into things, but it was all good. I started racing with the Tour de Vineyards in the Nelson area on the 1st of January. The race went ok, not great. I was riding alright, and managed to slip myself into the break on the 3rd day on the way to Takaka Hill. Tough day to be a away with the typical headwind hampering our progress. I inevitably cracked, and even manged to hit the road in the feed zone after my feeder swung my feedbag into my handlebars. After 100km away I didn't think the peloton would finally pass me while I stood on the side of the road putting my chain back on. Below is a photo of me at the top of the hill, with pod taped on. It only barely survived the crash.

Not a lot else really happened in January. I didn't race again before leaving and spent most of my time either riding my bike, packing my bags, or trying to sort my visa. Having completed the packing and visa in time, I was allowed to fly off to the US, via Fiji. With such a long a flight, and a decent stop over in Fiji, I did make some friends on the flight. Here we are below at a curry place in Fiji, with my goat curry in front of me.

Now I'm back in the US with Team Type 1 training camp, so I should say a little bit about what I'm doing this year.

Last year I rode with the Pro team, but didn't race too much with them. This year I'm racing full time with the development team, and will be pulled into the Pro team when possible. This will give me a lot more racing, and by the end of the year I should be flying. I'll be based out of Richmond, VA, but will travel a bit. After all, I do still have another 22 states to visit.