Ayup everyone, seen as it's Christmas time and approaching the new year, i figured it'd be a good time to reflect and let you know what i'm up to, what's planned and all that. looking back on this year it's gone quickly, i was lucky to end up in a nice town and be surrounded by great, helpful people. Issoire gave me some memorable times and there i met some people i'll always remember. It was a great experience living there and the area of Auvergne is a beautiful place that i will definitely visit again. However, after seven months i was chuffed to be home and the last few weeks have absolutely flown by. Straight after my last race, i took around four weeks off the bike, the first of which i did a camping trip around France with some friends. We visited the ardeche, where we did a 30km canoe trip down an amazing gorge, before visiting st tropez and montpellier among other places. It was great fun and nice to relax after being focused for so long.
I'm back on the bike now and have been for a few weeks, getting the pedals turning for what will be again a tough season next year. I've just got back from lanzarote where i was working very hard to get a kick start into shape ahead of a lot more training for next season. As for where i'm going to end up next season, i have sorted a deal with an Italian team called Sc cene Valseriana. They are a good team based near Bergamo, close to where my brothers team is based and so me and Josh will be sharing an appartment in bergamo and will be riding an almost identical calender starting in mid February.
The new team are on Scott bikes and i'm happy to be continuing to race on a Scott after they were a fantastic sponsor this season, along side Eureka cycles and Eureka cafe. They helped me this year by giving me a Scott addict r2 to ride, it's an amazing bike and i'm very grateful that they gave me the opportunity to ride one this year, so thanks very much to keith and Anne Peek at Eureka and to Scott UK! please follow the links on the side of the page to any of the sponsors that have helped me this year.
Thanks for reading, and i'll update again soon, hopefully with some pictures of interesting happenings while i'm out and about on the bike. Merry Christmas everyone and a happy new year!

Now then, it's been a couple of weeks or so back in france now and since the last post i've done three races. They were all criterium races, so two fast hours on the bike. And they were all quite eventful despite the boring courses they were put on. The first took place on the most uninspired course i have ever done, a triangle of long, straight, wide roads. I tried to get away and make a race of it the best i could but it ended in a bunch sprint where feeling fresh i thought why not have a go eh. It was a bad idea, i'm a bloody useless sprinter at the best of times, and this was a particularly dangerous sprint. I sat back with about two hundred meters to go and watched the crashes in front of me from a distance, unfortunately harry had managed to land himself on the ground somewhere in them final meters, and smashed his bike into a few bits.
By the time the next race came around Harry was still healing and was training a small amount on an old bike he borrowed from our good friend Domi "the coach", so he sat this one out. I was motivated however to not end in a bunch sprint, and with a slightly tougher course it was possible, and so i set out early and rode out of my skin in the first hour to get 13 away. Then in the second half it chucked it down, and i was going crap round the corners. Better than five other guys however who chucked themselves on the wet floor leaving 8 of us to contest the finish, two lads got away and then i was third in the sprint, but i was happy to have not gone down after sliding round every corner for an hour.
Next up was Harry's grand return, and in our adopted home town of Issoire. His new bike was ready for about an hour before the start, but this was a very easy race to sit in the peloton, on a course where the are no corners it is like a 1200 meter track round the boulevards of the town. There were a lot of attacks and short lived breaks, sometimes i was in the them, sometimes i wasn't. After a while 9, i think got away and i went in a chase group of six i think. I was working hard to try and catch the leaders, while most of the other lads in the group didn't seem that bothered, so with a lot of work i held them at a minute at 50kph for about an hour, until they eventually they gained a lap, dragging the rest of the peloton with them. That meant all that work was for nothing, the peloton had sat on the break and caught us with two laps to go. i was a bit annoyed and so went for the sprint and was about tenth man back in the peloton.
And that's it, other that i've been training hard and have got a bit of speed after these criteriums. With a few good races coming up, with a bit of luck i should go well...

Ayup, well there's a bit to catch up on. First thing after my last blog was that i got ill and it was bloomin awful, i was stuck in bed for 5 days and it took me another week to recover after that. Still not sure what it was, but it's gone now, so who cares. But it meant two weeks off the bike a short while before one of my big objectives; the national championships.
I did however manage to fit one race in before my return to England, it was a pan flat race and i struggled round, but somehow i made a lucky split not far from the finish and got third from a group of 5. So this gave me a bit of confidence even though my fitness was lacking after being ill.
After this race i crammed in a hard week of training, before heading back in the car from issoire to Leeds which is a darn long way but i was with two friends that had being staying with me for a week, so at least there was someone to talk to. I then had a couple of days before the Otley town centre race, i love this race as it's only a mile or two from my house, and there is always a large crowd with lot's of family and friends on the roadside. The race was a bit frustrating this year though, with the first real break staying away from near the start and every attack from me and my brother being chased by a team mate of the riders in the front. I did feel good though and was never in difficulty so i was happy enough.
The national championships was even more frustrating. I started the race quite far back, and after the neutralized section, the race stayed neutralized by team sky until they decided they wanted to send a few guys up the road. On the small roads and the speed low i was struggling to move up and so didn't see the break go, i then never saw a time check, didn't know how many were up the road, my dad couldn't hear me asking and everyone i asked didn't know. It was a strange race and for the whole thing we were riding slowly and i didn't know what was going on. I left there disappointed, and with my brother in the same situation plus breaking his chain and so not being able to finish it was a rubbish day.
But i am writing this from France and am back concentrated on racing here. I am back training hard and hope for a good second half to the season when i have a new English team mate,Harry. He is a former triathlete and is a very good climber who could do some good things on the hard climbs, we'll see.
The tour de france heads to issoire next weekend, and so i've got a race on friday before a weekend of watching the tour, i'll hopefully get some pictures and put them up here.

Ayup, i'm useless at this blogging! sorry for the inconsistency. It's been a good couple of weeks though, on and off the bike. I've had a few visitors with my brother, his girlfriend and my friends Tom and Harry, we had some good times with bbq's, pedalo boats, and squeezing 5 of us into my small apartment for two weeks! it was good fun and the weather was top notch for pretty much the whole time, so smiles all round.
The first race i did was the stage race organised by my team, i was a bit disappointed at this race because i felt average all weekend, but with 6th,20th and 10th on the three respective stages i managed to come out 4th overall, my third 4th place in three races. The following weekend however was a race that suited me down to the ground; it was a very hard course with 7500ft of climbing in 110km. I felt great on the day and after a flat first half hour or so we reached the first climb it was a hard 4km climb and i went over the top in a group of 7. Eventually after a few hard little climbs, i was away with one other rider and we reached the final climb together. It was a tough one with the first three kilometers at over 17% gradient, and the last 5 kilometers at around 5%. i rode the whole climb alone, and won the race by over two minutes, bagging my first race win in france. I'm pretty chuffed, and with a race that climbs two cols this Sunday i hope i can do a good ride again.
Thanks again to Keith and Ann at Eureka cycles and Scott sports uk, having a great bike that i can rely on has made all the difference, cheers guys!

Ow do! it's been a while; just like when i try to read a book, when i write i have a tendency to feel like falling asleep, so it takes me a while.
Thanks and merci for the comments Joel and Benji. If you fancy reading better written blogs than mine then Joel (joeldavisonracing.blogspot.com) always puts down some good words about his exploits in Belgium. And Benjamin (benjaminolivier.blogspot.com) who is a strong bike rider (that speaks better English than me) from the town of Issoire, and writes about his racing in France in french.
The last couple of weekends were damn good weather and so i went through a few bottles and got some bad tan lines. The races were a little frustrating but went quite well; the first, last weekend, i was in a break with my friend Sebastian and we worked together in the final with him eventually taking the win and me getting killed in the sprint to finish 5th.
This weekend i felt a little better again as i start to get into good shape; and so saturday there was a breakaway of 6 which included my teammate William, so i stayed behind in the peloton, eventually as i felt good, i thought i'd try to bridge the gap after a small climb without bringing too many more riders with me. It took a while with two other riders, but eventually we caught the breakaway; however by this time my friend Sebastian, who is in good shape, had escaped alone and won the race around 5 seconds ahead of my group, where i finished 3rd in the small group sprint, so 4th in the race.
Sunday i felt stronger again and so from early in the race i was in the winning breakaway, and although i tried very hard to escape from the group of six, i couldn't and so was again killed in the sprint to finish 4th, again.
So two weeks and a 5th and two 4th's, although it's not the best places to finish, i feel very good and soon i hope i can win my first race in France (maybe i'll work on the sprint). Next weekend is an important race for my team, it is organised by them and the sponsors that support the team. It is two days with a stage saturday, a time trial on sunday morning, and a stage on sunday afternoon. I've checked out the routes for all the stages and saturday is tough, but the stage on sunday afternoon is very hard with a lot of climbing and so it is here where i hope that i can do a good ride. So there you go, the forms coming good, there are some good races coming up, and on wednesday my brother Josh and his girlfriend Penny are coming to visit for a week, lot's to look forward to!
Also congratulations to Scott who won the lincoln Gp this weekend, looks like he did a cracking ride!
a bientot!

Now then! busy last weekend with the three races back to back, but it was good timing to get me back towards after a week out with a nasty stomach. It started with 130kms on saturday, on mostly flat roads with 4 or 5 steep little climbs and a not too shabby field of riders. It took a while on the rolling roads for a break to get away and so the first half of the race was very quick, eventually it did split and i was driving in the front for most of it. But after around 120kms i hit a wall and blew spectacularly, for the last 10 or so kms i rode with the team car next to me; constantly handing me all the supplies of food and drink they had left, and finished probably a while down on the 20 or so that were in the front.
The following day i had recovered nicely, and started a criterium; that took place in a town centre and was 100 laps of just over a kilometer circuit with 200m of uphill ahead of the finish line. I attacked a lot of times as i usually do and ended up in the front with 8 guys; we lapped the field of 80 quite quickly and annoyingly many of them stayed with our group and were working for their teammates in the breakaway, chasing down everyone of my attacks. It was bloody frustrating and so i ended up sprinting in on the little hill for 3rd; a tidy little result coming back from illness.
The race on monday was a similar situation; a criterium which goes round a circuit so many times you worry for your mental health afterwards. This time i missed the break, but with an attack on the last lap i bridged to it alone and caught the group of ten on the line to finish 11th.
All in all i was happy; i felt better as the weekend went on, i got another podium place, i won some money for the rent in intermediate sprints; and after the weekend i recovered very quickly and feel stronger. I've done some good training these last couple of days coupled with a lot of sleeping, and the good form should eventually have chance to build, i'm trying anyway.
Next weekend i've been told there is not a right lot on, just sunday and a reet long drive to get there by the looks of it. So perhaps i'll take the weekend off and get some training in the mountains done for some of the races more suited to my characteristics in May.
On another note i have seen the time i set on the "steps" climb for eureka cycles has been bettered; well.... i'll be back!

Ayup sorry it's been a while since my last post, there are two main reasons for this; the first is that i have been lazy and the second is that i found a link to watch "the boat that guy built" and so watching this has taken some of my possible blog writing time. Poor excuses i know, but here it is anyway. The weekend before last was the last race i did, and it was a first category race, two hours away on the other side of the mountains to the west. So it was a bumpy drive in the team minibus a bit like the end of "the Italian job" maneuvering a bus round many hairpins with cracking views most of the way. When we set off at about 11 it was 30 degrees and blinding sunshine, however the other side of the summit at super besse was bloomin freezing and raining hard. So we arrived in a miserably wet town which i can't remember the name of and lined up along side 130 other guys who i think were also hoping for better weather judging by the faces, shivering and lack of warm clothing. We all soon forgot about the weather however and got on with the job which took place over 120kms on a 10km circuit, and coming towards the line for the finish i was away with three others with the peloton now split down to about 30 riders about to catch us. i was feeling good this day and i try not to look back at it too much because it's very irritating, but i(because i'm an idiot) thought there was still one lap to go and so didn't sprint (until i saw the lap board with about 20m to go) we were just caught by the peloton and i finished 8th. So we'll forget about this race.
The drive home however was as lovely in the other direction, and of course once we passed super besse on the way home it was 30 odd degrees and blinding sunshine! bloody typical.
The following week was much colder, and maybe it was partly this that led to me getting ill towards the end of the week. Whatever it was i had a few days laid in bed which unfortunately forced me to miss a very good weekend of racing, but woke up on tuesday feeling fresh and ready to hit em hard this weekend.
So there it is, three days of racing this weekend saturday, sunday and monday so plenty of trophy winning opportunities! and plenty to write about...