Firstly, a big hello to everyone reading this on the Hamilton City Cycling Club’s flash new website. It’s a great looking site which will hopefully be well used by our members as well as being regularly updated with info and articles concerning cycling within the club and around the city.
Well, it’s my 2nd season racing for the Liquid Fitness Cycling Team (www.liquidcycling.com) which is based out of Los Angeles, California. I am the only foreigner on the team but there is still a good mix of riders both in experience and strength. All the lads gets on well and have no trouble sacrificing (i.e. flogging) themselves to help out team mates which all makes for a great team environment. The team bike for ’09 is the Specialised Tarmac Pro SL with the SRAM Red groupset. So far I have been pretty impressed with the bike so it will be a shame to have to hand it back at the end of the season, albeit a little bit worse for wear.
Training in LA isn’t as bad as most people might think. In fact, the Santa MonicaMountains, just north of the city, have some of the best training roads I have ever ridden on. There are plenty of 30-60 minute climbs to choose from, hardly any traffic, and - I’m sorry to say - endless sunshine (Ok, I promise not to mention the great weather again).
I have been competing most weekends since arriving here 2 months ago. A lot of the events are 75-90 minute criteriums as well as some multi-day tours and the occasional long road race. Because there are a lot of good teams and good riders based on the West Coast all the races are top quality and usually attract reasonable crowds. My form and my results have been steadily improving but a highlight of the season so far was taking out a 3k prologue at the Pro/Am Ventura Stage race a couple of weekends ago. Unfortunately I couldn’t hold onto the yellow jersey but it was good to notch up my first win of the U.S. season.
It’s state championship time in California at the moment and because I’m not an American citizen I can’t compete, so, I have taken the opportunity to come up to Vancouver and do some racing in Canada and Washington instead. It’s always good to have a change of scenery as well as being able to burgle some local races because no one knows who you are.
Next on the calendar is a stage race in Alberta, Canada followed by another stage race in Reno, Nevada which should be fun. Last year we stayed at the casino that was sponsoring the event and had a criterium around the parking lot (no doubt the casino were taking bets on the race to recoup costs!)
Righto, that’s enough from me. I hope you’re all well, staying warm, and riding hard when you get the chance.
