Ooh là, là, Le Yorkshire

Aside from a decent special offer in the local shops there is little that gets a Yorkshire man’s heart really racing other than perhaps sport.  With this in mind it was a rare occurrence when my stomach fluttered with excitement as the words ‘Yorkshire’ emerged from Tour director Christian Prudhomme’s mouth.  He had just announced the destination for ‘Le grand depart 2014’.  The news saw the iconic city of Venice choking on its pizza as the charms of the Leeds- Liverpool shipping canal left the city’s famous gondola drivers wondering where the summer influx of tourists would come from.  The mumblings of money switching hands were swiftly muted; the Tours history is filled with more donations than the Godfather series but with everything Yorkshire has to offer it’s easy to see why the French would elect to cross the Channel rather than the Alps.  So I ask, what can ‘this ere bike race’ bring to the people of Yorkshire and what can Le Tour expect from ‘Les Rosbifs’?

There is a reason the tour visits the same beautiful places every year of its 101 year existence.  The reason is tourism: unashamedly putting the tour into tourism means ‘Le grande Boucle’ is as much about the landscapes and the scenery as it is about the people and the personalities.  But puns aside this is why Yorkshire wants a slice of the tart.  An opportunity to reach a global television audience of potential tourists who like me spend most of July ignoring the good weather in favour of gluing ourselves to the T.V. to watch our idols do battle.  With this in mind I should point out the best bits of Yorkshire are free.  Expect the famous cols of legend to be joined by the lesser known cattle grid of notoriety, from the rolling green and pleasant hills to our cobbled back streets as steeped in history as they are steep in gradient.  England’s biggest county offers a veritable wealth of Holiday snap shot opportunities and a pleasant change to the camp site clichés that are replicated on a million memory cards every year.  But aside from the hordes of fanatical tourists, what else can Yorkshire expect on the big weekend? Well, don’t be surprised if the street markings of ‘Bus stop’, ‘No parking’ and ‘School zone’ are joined overnight by the names of local heroes ‘Swift’, ‘Edmondson’ or perhaps the more exotic ‘Contador’ or the French housewives favourite ‘Voekler’.  This is merely a precursor of things to come, the first sneeze before tour fever really strikes.  Cue the day of the race and expect to see the diehard cycling fan base: the middle aged men in replica jerseys out and riding the roads ahead of their heroes.  But the tours gravity attracts so much more. The families will be out en masse, their picnic blankets down at dawn claiming their spot of prime road side real estate like a well placed German beach towel.   Then there are the younger more exuberant followers for whom the tour transports them back to their 8 year old self.  They run alongside the stars of modern cycling hoping to extend the moment, the names may have changed but the emotional ecstasy remains.  These young men have shed their suits and ties for the day, dusted off the millennium fancy dress costumes, the Borat mankini or the increasingly popular morph suit and pray their boss isn’t watching as they shake off the mornings sickie.  In seconds it’s whooshed by, a lycra clad moment transforming a piece of anonymous tarmac into stories for years to come.  For those in the crowd young enough to still require a souvenir from a day out, the Tour can provide with many a young fan going home clutching a free polka dot hat from the sponsors or perhaps a much sought after used bottle. 

So with the Yorkshire’s enthusiasm for the tour now up into levels reserved only for a war of the Roses cricket match or buy one get one free offer, it’s a good idea to give the continentals a heads up before they cross the North sea.  Firstly we must dispel the myth that Yorkshire is a dreary, wet place populated by penny pinchers, pint drinkers and flat cap wearers.  Sure it could rain but with the barbecues still smouldering from the summer’s heat wave I urge our European cousins to bring their optimism…and their brolly, just in case!  Now for the hardest myth to dispel: that the whitest part of a Yorkshire man’s skin is the patch just underneath where his wallet sits, so rarely does he allow the queens face to see the sunlight.  Quote a Yorkshire man the full price on anything and expect an exasperated ‘How much’ in a scene reminiscent of a Bowler appealing to a stern umpire.  Sadly as a well travelled son of the white rose I can honestly say this affliction of thrift has as much of a reputation internationally as York minster.  On the subject of international reputations, France’s culinary creations are well known and recreated the world over, but what can Yorkshire’s kitchens, its bakeries and its breweries do to compete with such Michelin stars?  In simple terms we don’t.  The craft of a Parisian patisserie is replaced by the honesty of a pie and pea supper.  We shun the pomp and delicacy of a 30 year old vintage wine in favour of a locally brewed, proudly Yorkshire bitter as a reward for a week’s hard graft.  But these are not things that should be compared.  The tour is the playing field for comparisons, man against man, country against country and that mes amis is why Le tour needs to visit Yorkshire.  The Tour de France may be a home grown event but like most global events the foreign contingent has raised the bar.  British sport and especially cycling is experiencing a golden era.  We have an embarrassing wealth of talent and the results to match; the question isn’t so much who will win but most recently which Brit will win.  We have left the French and other traditional cycling nations to scrap for stage wins with fewer and fewer of their new crop able to remember a home victory.  It is perhaps to ‘Les Rosbifs’ that the world must turn.  They must come to Yorkshire, to this proving ground of athletic potential and after spending millions in our tourist shops hopefully they can take away more than just a memory card full of Yorkshire’s beauty.  So drink up my guys, this one’s one me, oh dear, I think I’ve left my wallet in my other pants.       

Autumn is here, apparently

As my friend Peter pointed out my blog has been very much neglected of late.  The cob webs of blogging have set in nearly as much as the cobweb of my cycling forays.  Never the less having done little more than weekend warrior mileage over the last 4 months I shall tell the tale of the Boxing day world champs… so gather round children.  The day was a Wednesday, more significantly boxing day.  Traditionally reserved for drinking unwanted wine that the relatives forced on you and gorging on the previous days left overs, I was about to learn that Perth cyclists must just have a protein shake and an early night on Christmas day.  I drove down, such is my current level of fitness (and frankly at a 6:30am start I would pretty much have to set off on Christmas day to ride there).  As I risked my regular parking spot before glancing around for the meter man, I assembled the bike in temperatures of 28 degrees.  I rolled the 300 yards or so through Fremantle’s back streets only to find the street literally crammed with cyclists.  Estimates put the number at around 350 riders, drawn in by the not so mythical Papas world champs.  Henk Vogels (a blast from the mid 90’s anyone?) presented a trophy before we got under way and the rules were briefly explained… It’s better to die than get dropped being the biggie.  I was sceptical and perhaps a bit arrogant as we set off but within a few hundred yards the Green edge boys, Cameron Meyer, Jack Bobridge, Luke Durbridge and Graham Brown were keeping the pace close to 50km/h.   Before long arrogance was replaced by pain and sweat as I was thrown back into a race not dissimilar to a kermesse.   I grimaced for the best part of an hour as one long line extended along Perth’s river side roads.  After 1 and a half hours I began to replace pain with optimism as we approached the final run in along the causeway and down to the finish line… but no, just as I made my way into the top 50 for the first time the expected left turn never came and instead we made our way onto what would have to be described as a finishing loop, 25k’s worth!  I was tailed off more than once as we snaked our way around Perth’s back roads but with a bit of savvy riding (alright a well timed red light) I found my way back to the dwindling bunch of 50 riders.  Unfortunately this story doesn’t end with Joel getting the better of Graham Browne in a tight finish, the last hill of the day saw me and about 20 others slip graciously off the back and arrive in a couple of minutes down, led home by the Australian institute of Sport boys, and I mean boys as they were all on Junior gears.  Needless to say this was by far the hardest club ride I’ve ever done, a 44 km/h (26mph) average and a slight hangover from the day before didn’t mix well.  Cameron Meyer took the win in front of a reasonably sized crowd, complete with a motor bike photographer.   

Onto the area which seems to be taking up most of my time out here in OZ, work.  I finally resigned from the cement factory in January of this year to pursue a slightly more unusual career as a… drum roll please… Pest controller.  The job is immensely varied, I drive all over Perth committing acts of insect atrocities, giving people peace of mind and pest free houses.  I can’t say it was my first answer when I was asked as a 5 year old what I wanted to be, but then again I’m not a fire engine either.  The job does take up a lot of my time but I am making a decent living from it and with the ever nearing arrival of my sister in Australia, the money will come in handy.  The only down side is the early Monday morning start as I roll up slightly bleary eyed having been up half the night watching the weekends Belgian spring classic!  Perth’s weather seems to be behaving like a middle aged man fretting over the purchase of a Harley at the moment.  The Summer was the hottest on record as we recorded 22 days which reached over 38 degrees, topping out at 43C.  Now that’s fair enough, a decent summer is much appreciated but as I write we are one month away from Winter, and the temperatures still hit 27/28 degrees almost daily as Perth clings on to the good old days of summer.  With a bit of luck the days of heavy rain, long evenings in front of the fire and a reason to wear the Duffel coat I recently purchased are not far away.   

Finally I like to give a special word for extraordinary achievements in cycling.  This one is not so much a result as much as it is a step into the unknown.  www.mnmtours.com is a blogging website following the exploits of my former room mate from Belgium back in 2011, Mike Gregg.  Please take a moment to follow his Journey across Europe by bike as he camps in every field and climbs every mountain.   

Below: I live about 10km into the darkness!
 ouch

Meet your new best friend… the alarm clock

6 months ago the idea of a 6am club run seemed absurd to me, in fact my roommate from this year’s Belgium stint, Rob, was constantly bantered about his weird world of 5:30am club runs back in his native Manchester.  I think the words I used were ‘disgraceful and downright unnecessary’.  Yet the wheels of fate see me here, well not literally but 4 hours ago I was sat in my car struggling to digest 5 snatched Weetabix and a couple of mugs of under brewed tea.  I was in the car on my way to ride my bike.  This practice used to be reserved strictly for races, but in the last 3 months I’ve broken many of my own cycling rules and this idea of driving to exercise is just another rule thrown to the wind in pursuit of a decent club run.  I park up in the port side suburb of Fremantle just after 6am.  I risk a parking ticket with the idea that if the meter man can get out of bed this early on a Sunday then he probably deserves my $100.  Only 2 sorts of people are out at this time… those that have been turfed out after the night clubs last orders, and of course cyclists.  I assemble the bike, zip up my jersey and proceed to weave my way through Fremantle’s revellers who seem to confuse me with a public urinal before finally reaching the civilized world of Papa’s café.  From there I am back in a more familiar world of posers and occasionally pro’s.  The ride meanders its way through the waterside suburbs, weaving its way past million dollar pads.  Perth’s roads are in pretty good knick, the lack of any frost means pot holes are non-existent and the only risk is whipping around a blind bend on sprinkler day to find the road awash with water and oil. There are a couple of sprints dotted around as the bunch strings its self out as we race through the financial district and finally a gallop at the end of the ride on the sea front,  It’s a good enough run as 75km takes just under 2 hours, certainly it justifies the 45km drive either way.  It is the nearest thing to my hometown favourite ‘café race’ as riders start getting spat out as soon as the bunch crests the first speed bump.  I am slowly getting some fitness back however, since finishing work for Christmas I have been doing between 2-3 hours every early morning, creeping out the door at 6am wearing nothing but shorts and jersey as it’s already 20 degrees.  My riding repertoire has swelled and I now know where the best spots are for kangaroo spotting and climbing practice.  My hunt for a local team has so far been unsuccessful but I guess I will have to let my legs do the talking as the road season down under starts in mid-April.    

On to the slightly less civilized world of employment.  I now have a title at work…’strapper’ (although my spell check seems to think that should be stripper!); and hopefully I will graduate to the dizzying heights of forklift driver soon.  Biceps are more valued than brains at work though (hence why I’m starting at the bottom of the pile), a new guy used the word trigonometry at work the other day and was met with a barrage of confused looks followed swiftly by four letter profanities (think fosters adverts but after the watershed).  Never the less most of the workforce is made up of foreigners, be it kiwis (New Zealand), Poms (English) or south East Asians and we all share the same ideas: make good money and enjoy it later in life.  I’ve even managed with Perth’s occasionally infernal heat, so far 38 has been the warmest but as summer blows in from the outback I’m assured the 40’s are not far away… gulp.  I am becoming quite settled here, I haven’t flirted with the idea of going home any time soon although I think the duck may have to be broken for le tours visit to Yorkshire in July 2014! 

I would like to take this chance to say a quick thank you for following me through one hell of a year.  Three countries, 40 races, 2 jobs and hopefully my last fresh start for the near future.  I wish everybody a good Christmas and good health for 2013.  A final mention of congratulations to Josh Edmondson who has finally achieved the recognition for his great talents and been snapped up by sky for the next 2 years… yet more proof if it were need that the work of the Dave Rayner fund is producing results.  

Happy Christmas, Gelukkige kerstmis  

The pommies first Whinge

Well it’s been six weeks now since I touched down on the red earth that passes for Australian soil.  I’ve been waiting for a moment of pure Australian culture to write and so as I sit here digesting last night’s kangaroo steak under a 35 degree sun I felt the time was right.  The majority of my time in those first few days was spent scouring the job pages in the local paper and negotiating the maze that is Australia’s various government departments.  One of the big sticking points was proving who I was and trying to convince the bored office worker on the other side of the desk that I should be allowed to stay over here.  The taxation department proved to be the most difficult people, which, considering I wanted to give them money is a surprise.  For nearly four weeks letters went back and forth like a ping pong ball… all at my expense of course before they finally granted me permission for me to start paying them.  This brings me conveniently to a bit of a home truth about Australia, you pay for everything! The best example I can think of is the bank… every month I entrust them with my hard earned money and in return they charge me the princely sum of $4 for the privilege.  They give me no interest and charge me the equivalent of pulling my pants down should I slip up and accidentally use an ATM that isn’t owned by them.  But having got that off my chest I feel much better, if not a little lighter in the pockets. 

My bike did eventually turn up around 10 days after I did.  Customs and quarantine went on a money making exercise slicing the tape of the box and popping a sticker on it before stinging me $115 for their efforts.  I took the old girl for its first spin just a day later.  I live at the bottom of a rather lazy range of hills so I found the first road up and snaked my way up its gentle slopes.  20 minutes later and I was puffing like an old race horse and wondering if I’d just moved to the Alps or something, the faint outline of muscles under a new carpet of leg hair the only sign that I used to be good at this stuff!  The roads up in the hills are not there for scenery, they connect remote villages and pompous golf courses to each other so there are a few risks that come with riding in the bush.  Fire is a biggie here.  I’ve done several rides where the smoke is fanned by the strong winds and the risks only increase between now and summer which is just a month away now.  The other one for me is the local wildlife.  Back in England you could set your watch by the Spring lambing season safe in the knowledge that a rude awakening at the Eddie Soens was just days away.  But here… I think the picture will have to speak for itself.  I was off on my weekend pootle around Canning Damn when I stopped dead in my tracks to marvel at this beauty.  It is a monitor Lizard, around 3 feet long and according to Wikipedia, only slightly venomous.  It’s not uncommon for me to come across lizards on my rides; they bask in the sun like Brits on a foreign holiday, so far no snakes but more disappointingly no kangaroos.  I have however been attacked on my bike.  There I was minding my own business when like a pantomime attack the bugger swooped in from behind… a magpie, clawing and pecking at my helmet for a good few hundred metres. 

After the first couple of weeks of settling in I started to clock up a steady stream of interviews from an apprentice chef to Pest control but the common theme of never hearing anything back began to get a bit disheartening.  I was picking up a couple of days of labouring here and there to tide me over financially and spending the rest of my time job hunting.  Labouring is not something I’ve ever done before.  By 11am on day 1 my pipe cleaner arms were beginning to drop off but by this point I’d already traded my sidi cycling shoes for steel capped boots so I knuckled down and kept unloading the boxes of condoms and subway sauce.  In the mean time I had been called in for an interview for a sales job in the heart of Perth… finally a chance to work in the vibrant hub of the inner city.  I waited in the reception surrounded by more beautiful girls than a snoop dogg music video.  Just half an hour later and I’d been given the job; although what the job entailed I still had no idea.  I went in apprehensively on day one.  The 40 minute train ride was more Delhi than Perth as crowds of people crammed in to what would have been a great advert for deodorant.  The job was everything a salesman doesn’t tell you, on the outside glamorous, spending my day ogling the local girls but realistically selling merchandise to people who neither needed it nor could really afford it.  By 1PM on day two I had quit, I morally objected to the job and its ruthless rates of commission ensured I would have only scraped a living.  As it turned out I wouldn’t even have earned a living as the $160 worth of commission owed to me never materialised.  I knew by this point that I had to start living more like the immigrant I was.  In the UK migrants frequent a few places, firstly cheap shops… Lidl/Aldi do a roaring trade selling home favourites to various nationalities so I now spend most of my shopping budget in the local cheap and chinky (that’s not it’s real name, it’s just a food shop run by Chinese people at great prices).  Secondly and contrary to general British opinion: Migrants want to work.  My plan is to make money here so when the opportunity to work long unsociable hours (6am-4pm) for good money came around, I jumped at the chance.  Firstly there was the formality of taking a DNA test… or so I thought.  It turns out it was D&A, meaning drug and alcohol test, pee in a cup to you and I.  You would have thought this would come naturally to a cyclist but I’ve never been drug tested so it was novel.  By tea time (which is pronounced dinner over here) I had passed and was set for my new job as a concrete sheet loader man… it truly is as exciting as it sounds but at over $1000 (£645) per week I think I can live with it for a while.

I have been somewhat cut off from the outside world this last few weeks with precious little internet and just the local paper whose sports pages are packed out with AFL (Australian rules football, basically quidditch without brooms) for company.  Never the less the façade being played out in cycling at the moment has trickled down to me.  I won’t vent my frustrations here but it does seem as though cycling is in need of a root and branch clean up. At the age of 15 I was asked at a cycling camp who my hero was and I replied “Lance Armstrong”.   Lance for me brought cycling from an obscure hobby to a genuine interest and made it a big chunk of my life.  I took it for what it was, entertainment and fun. It’s difficult to know where cycling can go immediately… certainly a new poster boy is needed.  Personally I think the sport needs a new direction, people who want a return to the glory days need to take off their cotton cycling jersey and put down their 1976 cycling weekly.  But you should believe in the new generation, I’ve seen what the Dave Rayner riders dream of and they want to do it right, do it clean… see for yourself at www.daveraynerfund.com or even better grab a ticket to the Dinner and meet the guys!    

Cheers for now x

                                                             Motorised doping anyone???

                                           Hmmm…. Broccoflower, these aussies have been down here too long 

New beginnings & fosters adverts

7 weeks ago I wrote about my endeavours of disastrous stage racing.  As the weeks slipped by without much more than a leisurely pedal being turned I began to think about the off season and what I could make of my life as my cycling began to stall. It gave me a chance to step back and to consider how and even if I could turn a dream into reality.  Sadly the answer to this question which all young aspiring athletes must ask of themselves is a whispered no.  I am proud to say that I took chances and risks when they came my way, I’m humbled by the support of the Dave Rayner fund and most of all blessed to have broadened my horizons and enhanced my life through cycling.  But what of the here and now… where do I write from?

Well I’m never one to hang around but neither am I impulsive.  If I go shopping for clothing I only ever have to pay for an hours parking… I make my mind up and stick with it… sometimes because I’ve lost the receipts though! I knew work had to be my main priority and like a huge chunk of my generation the pond simply can’t provide for all the fish, so I made the biggest decision of my life and decided to fly from the pond of recession to the new land of opportunity… West Australia.  It’s a big step.  My grandmother posed herself the same question in 1976, England was mere existence for her, she wanted a life and to have things to look forward to.  Australia was as desperate for workers as she was for opportunity and so she gambled everything on the leaflet offering a better life. Back then the internet was something inside a pair of swim shorts and Australia had only just stopped being a six weeks boat journey away so information was hard to come by and the bravery required to jump into the unknown with two young children must have been immense.  I decided to make that same life changing step whilst gazing aimlessly out of the window one morning.  I wouldn’t say I’m quite as brave as her, I have never had to go hungry on an evening or knit my own clothes but the principles of wanting a better life remain. 

September 12^th was the big day.  I arrived bleary eyed at Manchester airport and showed up to the front desk destined for Singapore.  It wasn’t my knees trembling but my arms weirdly as I struggled to hide the fact my luggage was overweight.  After a shoulder wrenching couple of minutes of dangling my bag gently on the scales I was cleared and left to say my goodbyes to my family.  It was a true evacuees experience as my mum put on a brave face, my dad offered me a firm handshake and my sister politely asked if I had any English change I’d like to get rid of… I felt only excitement at the time but as I read and re-read the words of wisdom in the good luck card from my parents I knew the lump in my throat wasn’t excitement… that lump is normally somewhere else!  Singapore arrived after some amazing thunderstorms around Delhi and with over two hours to kill it was time to do some Yorkshire man’s shopping… that is, showing up with no money and looking only to waste time.  I love airports; they are the only place to truly people watch.  Being in Asia there was the expected abundance of Chinese tourists taking cliché photos at every opportunity.  Singapore is probably the best airport in the world to kill a few hours as I took myself off on the tour of the butterfly gardens and marvelled at the koi carp pond with the building excitement that Oz was just around the corner. 

September 13^th finally came after what felt like the longest day of my life… I proudly slipped into the fast track queue for passport control for Australians only.  I stood there at the machine and scanned away, the bloke next to me marvelling at my computer skills before piping up and asking if he was ‘doing it right’? I hadn’t expected to be put on the spot so early but I put my new mentality into practice… Lie back and think of the fosters adverts! As I quickly let out a ‘Yeeeaaaahhh’ in my finest OZ twang.  Then it was onto customs and my first opportunity to get in an inadvisable joke.  The giant red circular bag laid on top of my luggage labelled ‘Roval Aerodynamic wheels’.  The bloke in front glanced down at its locked zips, looked up at me and asked ‘what’s in it’? …. Oh dear! Never one to miss a moment of comedy I replied ‘frisbie’… He raised an eyebrow before probably resuming his day dream. 

I’ve been here three full days now.  The logistics are falling into place and with no sign of a bike yet Job hunting is my number one priority.  The local papers are full of opportunities which can give me little doubt as to whether I’ve made the right decision so wish this ‘Pommy’ all the best!

New beginnings & fosters adverts

7 weeks ago I wrote about my endeavours of disastrous stage racing.  As the weeks slipped by without much more than a leisurely pedal being turned I began to think about the off season and what I could make of my life as my cycling began to stall. It gave me a chance to step back and to consider how and even if I could turn a dream into reality.  Sadly the answer to this question which all young aspiring athletes must ask of themselves is a whispered no.  I am proud to say that I took chances and risks when they came my way, I’m humbled by the support of the Dave Rayner fund and most of all blessed to have broadened my horizons and enhanced my life through cycling.  But what of the here and now… where do I write from?

Well I’m never one to hang around but neither am I impulsive.  If I go shopping for clothing I only ever have to pay for an hours parking… I make my mind up and stick with it… sometimes because I’ve lost the receipts though! I knew work had to be my main priority and like a huge chunk of my generation the pond simply can’t provide for all the fish, so I made the biggest decision of my life and decided to fly from the pond of recession to the new land of opportunity… West Australia.  It’s a big step.  My grandmother posed herself the same question in 1976, England was mere existence for her, she wanted a life and to have things to look forward to.  Australia was as desperate for workers as she was for opportunity and so she gambled everything on the leaflet offering a better life. Back then the internet was something inside a pair of swim shorts and Australia had only just stopped being a six weeks boat journey away so information was hard to come by and the bravery required to jump into the unknown with two young children must have been immense.  I decided to make that same life changing step whilst gazing aimlessly out of the window one morning.  I wouldn’t say I’m quite as brave as her, I have never had to go hungry on an evening or knit my own clothes but the principles of wanting a better life remain. 

September 12^th was the big day.  I arrived bleary eyed at Manchester airport and showed up to the front desk destined for Singapore.  It wasn’t my knees trembling but my arms weirdly as I struggled to hide the fact my luggage was overweight.  After a shoulder wrenching couple of minutes of dangling my bag gently on the scales I was cleared and left to say my goodbyes to my family.  It was a true evacuees experience as my mum put on a brave face, my dad offered me a firm handshake and my sister politely asked if I had any English change I’d like to get rid of… I felt only excitement at the time but as I read and re-read the words of wisdom in the good luck card from my parents I knew the lump in my throat wasn’t excitement… that lump is normally somewhere else!  Singapore arrived after some amazing thunderstorms around Delhi and with over two hours to kill it was time to do some Yorkshire man’s shopping… that is, showing up with no money and looking only to waste time.  I love airports; they are the only place to truly people watch.  Being in Asia there was the expected abundance of Chinese tourists taking cliché photos at every opportunity.  Singapore is probably the best airport in the world to kill a few hours as I took myself off on the tour of the butterfly gardens and marvelled at the koi carp pond with the building excitement that Oz was just around the corner. 

September 13^th finally came after what felt like the longest day of my life… I proudly slipped into the fast track queue for passport control for Australians only.  I stood there at the machine and scanned away, the bloke next to me marvelling at my computer skills before piping up and asking if he was ‘doing it right’? I hadn’t expected to be put on the spot so early but I put my new mentality into practice… Lie back and think of the fosters adverts! As I quickly let out a ‘Yeeeaaaahhh’ in my finest OZ twang.  Then it was onto customs and my first opportunity to get in an inadvisable joke.  The giant red circular bag laid on top of my luggage labelled ‘Roval Aerodynamic wheels’.  The bloke in front glanced down at its locked zips, looked up at me and asked ‘what’s in it’? …. Oh dear! Never one to miss a moment of comedy I replied ‘frisbie’… He raised an eyebrow before probably resuming his day dream. 

I’ve been here three full days now.  The logistics are falling into place and with no sign of a bike yet Job hunting is my number one priority.  The local papers are full of opportunities which can give me little doubt as to whether I’ve made the right decision so wish this ‘Pommy’ all the best!

Poetic Injustice

Like Martin Luther King, I had a dream

But mine was to go to Belgium and boy was I keen

My bag was packed and the bike was built

And I jacked in my job, no feelings of guilt

A quick email and the Rayner Fund were on side

But come March and there was nowhere to hide

Queue the wind, wet and cold, or just leave it at grim

March rolled into April and still no signs of a win

May was looking up as I cracked that top 20

I raced every other day so opportunities were plenty

Then the highlight of the year as I rode to watch the tour

A great day out and a look at what I was aiming for

But from highs to lows as I took a tumble and broke my frame

I was battered and bruised, my head out the game

I remember the drive home, I wanted to cry like a baby

Even the radio couldn’t console me with a bit of ‘call me maybe’

But I got back on the spare bike and did what I could

But prize money never went far with Belgium’s Robin Hood

My final chance came in my only stage race of the year

The hiss of a puncture and I was out the rear

But I leave Belgium with no regrets… no wins either

 It’s in words not trophies that I’ll be remembered as a rider