Life is like riding a bicycle - in order to keep your balance, you must keep moving. ~Albert Einstein

the last day, and it was baking hot!!!!
35 deg, and stuck in our jet black kit it wasnt going to be too much fun
the stage was an 80min circuit race, with 2 hairpin turns, a wee climb up to the finish, and a long straight to really put the hammer down on.
i was mucking round before the start trying to find a portaloo to take a piss in, and found one, then rolled backwards up towards the finish and got a start on the front row of the grid - HOT
first lap was neutral then it was game on, i wasnt too sure how things would pan out as the leader on gc only had 3 seconds lead, so it was going to be mental. in the end a group of about 15 got away, i bridged across with a weisenhof guy and that was that, we pulled a gap out quickly as unibet set an easy tempo on the front and off we went into the heat of the day.
after the first sprint at 20min, a group of 3 carried on and got a gap, i wasnt too worried as there were still 15 or so of us left, with stuey o’grady and co with us i was certain it would come back. the gap grew to about 30sec, and stayed there for ages, with the jayco boys trying to bring it back for stuey, then i looked back and saw stuey just about bin it onto his face, all i saw was him all over his handlebars with his back wheel in the air, and i thought he was about to land on his face but he held it. later i found he actually snapped his chain when he was out of the seat up the climb, not fun!!
after that our group went to pieces, and for the last half and hour we basically attacked the crap out of each other, i tried one to many times and blew to bits with 1.5 laps to go, it was a goody, i left a massive crater on the road, i actually blew that bad i couldnt get on the back of the group when they came past hhaha oh it was bad.
finished the stage happy with how i rode but pissed off i wasnt more attentive when the sprint was on, i definately felt i had the legs to be up there but just missed it by not paying attention, then got hammered in the last lap. maybe i shouldve looked after myself a bit better but i didnt see the point in racing for 4th when 1st was still up the road in reach. such is life i guess.
the suntour was a brilliant race for us, we all gelled really well together, and the track boys are definately looking forward to getting stuck into our work at the up coming oceania games and world cups

well if there ever was going to be a day off in the tour this was it
all we had to knock out was an 8.6km tt around the city center gardens in melbourne, and that was it.
we got up, had a wee bit of breaky and headed out along the coastal highway for an hour spin and a coffee stop which was magic, the legs definately needed it after feeling so rough yesterday.
we headed off for the tt and it was baking hot, i had hash’s little stubby aerobars on which would make life a little easier, the only thing was that we still had to push hard enough to make timecut which was 20%, and over an 8.6km course we figured would only be about 2mins or so, so you still had to go hard.
the course was actually really nice, couple of hairpin turns, few small rises, and a few big straights to open it up in the tail wind.
ended up not going to deep and only losing 50 seconds to the winner which was mint, knocked out another day and the pins were actually quite good, not too bad at all

well i woke up this morning and i was shattered, for whatever reason i just didnt sleep well and had bloody sore legs.
the stage on paper didnt look so bad, only one cat 3 climb after 35km, but i found out in the morning that the 2 guys going for the KOM jersey were tied on points, so it was game on.
we hit the bottom of the climb, and i made it about halfway up and then they turned on the gas, i could see it splitting up infront of me and just had to dig hard over the top so i was still in the convoy with about 15 others, and thankfully i did, and spent the decent in behing the SRAM neutral support car ( who was a brilliant guy, on the opening day when it was super windy and there were guys in the gutter in the gruppetto, he would drive the car up beside us so everyone got shelter, and would yell out the window “pulling some good hard laps for you boys today!!!” and he was always on hand with cokes or water ) until we hit the flat and got onto the back of a group, which all eventually formed back up into one bunch.
the cross wind today wasnt to bad, and i wasnt really put into any trouble when it was in the gutter but i just had the worst legs, just a case of getting to the finish and not getting dropped as we were flying along and time cut would only be about 6 min or so.
coming into 10km to go, dream got into a nice wee move and took off for the line, unfortunately he crashed on the final bend when he punctured right in the corner in the rear wheel, and boof down he went. i finished safely in the bunch and stayed upright to live to fight another day, hopefully with a new set of legs. dont think ill get a leg rub tonight, sometimes a hard massage will knock me about and block my legs up. who knows, im just happy that i could grind the day out without getting put into too much difficulty. another day done

well this was to be the grandaddy stage for us fat trackies, the stage was only 116km long so time cut would be tight, and we had a 14km climb to deal with followed by a 30km climb up to falls creek ski station.
things started off ok, nothing really got away as DFL were controlling things pretty well, after 60km we hit the first climb, the first 10km of the climb were actually ok, it was winding and really not that sweet so me, dream and logan looked after guddy and dragged him up the bunch everynow and then, and then the last 4km got quite steep, and i got dropped. it wasnt as bad as i thought, i was with jimmy casper and a few other boys from weisenhof-felt, so i wasnt out chasing by myself which i normally have to do and we settled into a nice rhythm to get to the top.
we decended down the otherside and i was again reminded these boys dont piss round going down hill, i just about cooked it up going into a hairpin, had the back wheel locked up and foot out and the works but didnt touch down so i was quite happy.
down in the valley we caught up to the bigger group including dream and about 15 others, and off we went up the 30km climb.
it wasnt amazingly steep, which was my saving grace, still went through a couple of rough patches though were i just actually had enough of riding my bike uphill but dream kept me entertained and i stuck with the group.
with 10km to go we heard that the leaders had just finished, and we did our maths and had 37min to do the last 10km so we were going to make time cut easily, we ended up crossing the line with 15min to spare which was nice, our hotel was right after the finish, so we crossed the line, biked up the driveway and straight into the lift and up to our rooms before we had even sat down, not bad really, not bad at all.
our massuse lily came and gave us rubs straight away, she is a tiny little asian lady, who normally works with the melbourne storm league team, and by christ, ive never had anyone hurt me so much on the table in my life. my back was a bit jacked up, so she was trying to work out the knots in my lower spine, at one point she was actually standing on the table with all her weight on her elbow which was on the knot in my back-i actually just about spewed it hurt that much. after that we kinda had to tell her that cyclists really cant handle that much pressure on the upper body, as we werent built to play league like she was used too, she said “yeah, you guys are pretty weedy up top” and laughed, then did the same thing to guddy haha

today was either going to be easy, or stupidly tough
after 16km there was a 20km cat 2 climb, which was either going to be ridden flat nack to force a split or a solid tempo, i was hoping for the latter, and thankfully got it
me and guddy tried to go with all the moves in the opening 16km, and i actually hit the bottom of the climb a bit gassed, but DFL rode a solid tempo for their climber to get the points and i settled in ok, i actually even ended up dragging guddy into position a few times with dream so it was to bad at all, the only bit that sucked was it didnt decend straight away but we stayed along the top for a wee while and went down and up for about another 9km, but it was attack city. again i tried to roll a few moves but with a big decent it was never going to happen. thats the other thing ive learnt this tour, is holy shit those protour guys can decend FAST. it was actually kinda scary how fast they could take corners when they didnt know the roads, jimmy casper is just flat out nuts, i went into a corner near the front, and when i went into it thought i was going in way to fast, and was getting a touch panicky, then i looked and jimmy casper going round the outside of me near the barrier. yeah, it was mental.
after the climb it was pan flat with more wind until the final 10km which we climbed back up to about 800m to the finish, i went in a few moves, it was all pretty much back together at 10km to go, i lasted in the bunch until 5km to go until “grupetto” was shouted, and i instantly eased off, my pins were wrecked, even if i made it with the bunch to the finish there was now way i could sprint so there wasnt much point in smashing myself for no reason, im not a sadist when i dont need to be haha
i ended up rolling in with fellow kiwi jeremy vennel, which was good to catch up with. on a sad note, hayden godfrey missed time cut, he had a shit of a day, missed time cut by 2 min, but lost about 5min when he punctured and there was no support vehicles to give him a wheel, some totally random dude driving along the road hooked him up a spare, and the judge still cut him and his group. was pretty stupid really, considering they let in aussie pete dawson the previous day and he came in on his own and had just been dropped.

today we started at our sponsors home, right out of the winery, and it was blowing its tits off
straight away as soon as the flag dropped it split to bits, i wasnt in amazing position but managed to go from the second group and into the first of about 15 before it went completely balls out.
once i got there the hammer dropped, trent lowe from discovery had missed the move, and unibet and astana had their key guys in it, so off we went,we covered 52km in the first hour, and we never had a tailwind at all, it was mental, we ended up loosing a couple of guys who tried to sit on, it was basically impossible, it was easier to lap through than sit on as the wind was that strong as soon as you spent too much time out there you were toast.
me and guddy were there, and it was looking pretty good, 7 guys from the second group somehow made it across after an hour, god knows how, but stuey o’grady and trent lowe made it, and then we hit a cat 2 climb.
i lasted about halfway up it, and then just got spat, unibet were on the front setting tempo and i couldnt stay with it, the group split in half and guddy made it which was awesome, i settled into a rhythm on stueys wheel and all of a sudden, i looked up and he was 500metres up the road in the next group, i was like-what the fuck, and realised he got a pretty good bidon from the team car, so i said “buggar it” looked over my shoulder and bunny(team manager graham bunn) was right there in the car, so i got a bottle as well and got taken up to the group, just about tore the mechanics arm off who was giving me the bottle but made it all the same, then we just settled into a really cruisy tempo to get to the finish. made it over the 3rd cat climb easy enough and rolled towards the finish.
just before the finish though, we rolled past a pretty famous town-bonnydoon!!!!!!! for those that have seen the movie the castle, it all makes perfect sense. it was magic!!! “hows the serenity” calls came out alot and we all had a good laugh.
guddy finished with most of the unibet boys on another hard, windy and hilly day.
legs were quite good and i was happy with how i rode, i didnt feel out of my depth riding in the cross winds with the big boys, so was pretty stoked with that, just cant climb with them at all but being the biggest buggar there it was never going to happen. such is life!

stage one kicked off with a hard stage, with 2 catergorised climbs in the first 30km, a cat 3 followed by a cat 2.
guddy fired off into the opening break which was perfect for us, so we got to sit back a bit and surf a few moves without expending too much power. it was windy as hell so we still had to be attentive.
the break went out to over 2 min and we hit the first climb, which we took really easy and i got over the top the easiest i ever have in a tour, which lulled me into a big false sense of security, as i got illusions over grandure and thought i would make it over the 2nd cat climb which was about 7km long. HAH
we hit the bottom of the climb and i knew i was in the shit. i was already in the 23 and was slogging my guts out big time, safe to say after about 2km of holding on for dear life the bunch blew to bits. i got into a pretty decent size group after that, and slogged all the way to the top. it was the hardest 2nd cat climb ive ever done, it was super steep and went on for ages, the race was split to bits and i hit the top and we still had 120km to go!!!!
down the other side the laughing bus i was in picked up more victims of the wind and heat, and we ended up with about 30 people in the group. it was actually an easy stage after we all got dropped, i just had to be smart and watch the wind, even though we werent going to hard, it still sucked in a big group to be caught down the back when the wind changed from one side of the road to the other, and we got about 2km of straight tail wind the whole day-NOT FUN!!!
guddy got picked up by the big boys over the other side of the climb, and from what he said it went ballistic in the wind until 11 got away in a big section of cross wind. he followed 7 attacks, and as you know it the 8th went and that was that, the big gc move went and took about 10 mins and the winner of the race would come from that group. felt pretty stink for him-but there wasnt alot us fat trackies could do with a big climb like that at the start, it was pretty much survival for us from the start.
we finished the day about 20min down but way inside the time cut so lived to fight another day.
our sponsors this year mitchelton wines were absolutley outstanding-we went for a big dinner and cocktail party that night at their winery and got shown round, me, guddy, stuart o’grady and trent lowe got called up on stage for a few questions infront of the crowd, and for those of you who havnt seen stuey in person-he’s bloody TINY.
i actually couldnt believe it, the guy had just won paris-roubaix this year, i honestly thought he was way bigger, but there is absolutely nothing to him at all. sigh, maybe its time to get back on the diet again
one big excitement after the stage was a dirty big black snake slithered straight past our front door when we were getting a massage. bloody aussie wildlife, doors were locked down after that episode thats for sure

today kicked off with an hour crit round bendigo, it wasnt for gc only to sort out who wore the jerseys for the next day, it was a pretty tight crit, with a hair pin turn after a long uphill drag, and starting near the back sucked, but guddy made the front group of about 7 guys, and the bunch shut down and rode tempo till they lapped us after about 45min, pretty much a non day of racing for me, i was just stoked to get through without crashing or anything stupid, it was actually one of the safest crits ive done, everybody just wanted to get through it, and when the move went, astana and unibet just blocked the road so nobody else could attack and that was that. guddy hit them with about 3 laps to go and got a good gap, but got reeled in with about 1.5 laps to go, then got caught up in a crash when ben jacque maynes my teamate from last year, decided to lie down on the job, some guy from astana won.
looks like a pretty challenging day tomorrow, 2 cat climbs in the first 35km, so will be a long day if the boys go balastic up them and it splits to bits. we will see

heres a photo of us at the presentation last night, im not smart enough yet to nick photos of cycling news so heres the link

http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2007/oct07/suntour07/index.php?id=/photos/2007/oct07/suntour07/presentation07/DSC_3114