Lights Are On...Intermission Folks..

So it has taken me at least until Saturday to finally start to feel like normal again. It's been nice to have this break week and get some little jobs finished and also get out and explore minus the lycra. Enjoy the pics, it's my rest week so I dont have to write so much!

Cheers everyone...thanks for stopping by, Winston.

Seeing these fellas were awesome. And we were close too, a little too close!

Soon to be appearing on 'So you think you can dance'

Don't jump little fella!

Nice park ya clown...who would have figured..large SUV's in underground car parks..?

If only I had headlights....

Life is Good.

Mac Attack To Use Only Chopsticks In August!

Well with a nomination from CA it's pretty safe to say that the one and only Mac Daddy, D-Mac McConnell will be on the start line in Beijing in a few months time. Awesome news to wake up to and I couldn't be more stoked for the man who I'm sure will do the green and gold tracksuit proud. Awesome job shags, i knew you could get there...

Heading In For A Pitstop

So the Tour de Nez finished up and I'm now back home at Denver. Cool race, really cool race in a nice part of the world. The last stage was another altitude lung buster up in the village of NorthStar. A sweet 2mile loop that went through the cobbled lanes past the shops was a hoot and full gas with the GC still in reach for a handful of riders. Once again I battled and survived to the finish. Overall I guess as disappointing it was to be taken out on the first stage, the positive was that I was able to finish the tour. Always better than trading the lycra for handing bottles in the feedzone. So this week brings up a little break in the season for me. Time to recharge the batteries and take a short break from wearing the tight stuff before the second half of the season begins. This last week has really taken it out of me, especially with some long 16hr travel days and racing all week in thin air.

In other news being the sticker freak I am, I gave the rig a nice spruce up yesterday. Enjoy all the other pics and thanks for reading...cheers, winston.

Raby checkin' out the scene at Lake Tahoe
Shame we didn't have time to give the Suby Outback a crack at the title...

Real salt folks. Yes I tried tasting it.

Once again SRAM proved how supportive they are of North American Bike racing, providing awesome neutral support. Big shout out to Chad and the lads for the great work...

Feeling The Pinch

So today didn't go so well. I guess the stress on the body since the crash really took it's toll and with such a hard course something had to give. Pretty much I had nothing from the get go and suffered my way to the finish. The wrists seem to be improving and gaining a bit more movement with less pain, but any rough road hits were felt. Results haven't been posted on C-News yet, but I can tell you Wohlberg killed it for the big W. And that's about all she wrote for race day. Dinner was authentic Mexican, a platter for 2 people turned out to be enough for 2 families....guess what's for breakfast....lator....cw

Finding The Positives

So I upgraded to this sweet brace for yesterdays crit. Not being able to be in the drops, pull on the bars or get outta the saddle really killed me and blew out my semi decent GC. But the positive was I made the time cut for today's circuit race stage and get to continue on. And actually the ITT yesterday was pretty good considering too, I finished in the top 30 and was only a minute down on the win. So I am chilling here in the hotel lobby with Kat, who has been awesome as our team soungier for the race. Today's stage is the big killer, 10 laps of a 6.5mile circuit with a nasty climb every lap. Hopefully I can hold on...literally..cheers, cw.

Tour de Nez.

Damn. I was hoping to report a decent finish but once again it was snatched away from me. 15mins to go in the first stage crit and sitting top twenty it all went pear shaped. Strung out full gas on the back straight some clown clipped barriers and took himself down hard. Two wheels back the BMC rider I was following proceeded to plow straight into him with nowhere to go. I was next to add to the mess. Flying over the bars and through the air was not a fun experience, and probably the nastiest stack I have been involved in. From what happened the damage report for me looks pretty good. Two jacked up badly sprained wrists and a little bit of road rash was it. Super lucky to escape with no broken bones. Taylor Tolleson of BMC broke his collerbone and the California-Berry rider who created the mess left the scene with some nasty road rash and a big hole in his top tube. So life is pretty fun right now that I cant really open doors, hold stuff..yeah yeah yeah suck it up.

This morning was stage two, and uphill TT. My wrists hurt like hell to hold the bars and shift/brake but the legs seemed okay. Another crit tonight will be the real test. Hopefully I can hang in there and ride out the week...lators..winston.

A Whole Lot Of Not Much.

Been a fairly relaxing week I must say. Training has been very light after being feeling pretty smashed most days, although I did managed to sneak in a spew worthy motor pace session on Friday. Hopefully it's will bring me up for Tour de Nez next week which will be an absolute cracker with some big names on the start list.




The team van got redone this week and came up looking pretty snazzy. And that's about exciting as this post will get. Okay I'll admit my focus is distracted by the most awesome-st, rad-est show on the Discovery Channel being 'Man Vs. Wild' where this ex British soldier goes mucks around in extreme remote parts of the world and shows how to survive. Right now he is in the Moroccan desert and pretty much dissecting a camel apart to get water. Sounds wacky but it's pretty darn amazing what he does in order to survive and what he eats. Okay right now he is showing how the locals hide in the carcass if there is a freak sandstorm. Madd. Gotta do what you gotta do...and on that note..lators..cw.

More Exciting Than Boonen's Cocaine Positive..

..is Chipolte releasing a special 'Tour Edition' burrito for the month of July only. The "Le Burrito" as it will be dubbed, is a classic mix of chicken, lime rice, black beans, tomato salsa and guacamole. Contrary to the previous leaked information from sources, frogs legs or snails will not be ingredients. With one of these stores only 2.17min down the road from home, July will be a cracker of a month that's for sure.

In other news I took a 16th at the Boulder Hill Climb last weekend, not bad considering I had been smashing some big km's all week. Attacking the top of the dirt climb and into the descent seemed a good idea at the time, but not knowing the course kinda left me leg-less in the the last 3km. Some guy from Health-Net lit it up for the big W. Best thing about the day was clearly the free entry courtesy of Kat donning a very sharp looking volunteer's vest. Love those reflective colours.

And the last pic of today's post will go to my new prescription glasses courtesy of Smith and Sports Optical...nice, nice, nice....thanks guys..

The Madness That Was Tulsa.

Tulsa was just down right crazy. Mullet-men, wizards, lost skin, broken bones and a Nick Nolte/Gary Busey ringer with more money than sense. Oh and a major ass-whoopin' by Toyota-United too. Damn, where do i begin...somewhere is better than nowhere I suppose...but sit tight cause this is a long one..and enjoy the randomness that was Tulsa Tough NRC....

Friday night was an absolute riot. Night time crit! Hell yeah! I had no idea what to expect, but was pumped to the mega and hoping to avoid the first of much bad luck to come for the RMCEF women. Already we had chalked some names on the injured list with one woman face scraping the tarmac and another one with a potential busted rib.


The racing for the men didn't kick off until 9:30pm, so there was a lot of hanging around and twiddling the thumbs until we got to put on the tight stuff and strut our stuff to a nice downtown crowd. The set up was first class with massive TV screens around the place showing the action, plus the energetic Dave Towle commentary piped around the whole course, not just the main straight. Nice. Holy smoke the racing was a mix of pure insanity and awesome-ness at the same time. Concentration was needed with the constant shadowing around, not know whether guys were coming up beside you or not. The legs were feeling good early, but I pretty much paid the price for mixing up the front, dying in the crucial last couple of laps. Pretty much Toyota controlled the whole show. I mean with guys like Vogels, Dominguez, Stevic, Wherry, Hilton Clarke etc..they have some serious options. However I did manage to scare the hell outta Vogels though when I was squeezed into the gutter and used some of the old dirt riding skills to promptly execute a clean curb hop. Final verdict....a 45km/h average under lights in the warm Tulsa night with big crowds....just awesome!

Fast enough for ya...?

It was closest park we could find...I swear!

Day two was once again indeed wacky. Things were postponed for the early categories while a decent thunder-storm wrecked havoc on the course. Flash flooding was everywhere and brought heaps of mud and dirt onto the roads which made for some interesting racing for first group back.

Unfortunately this was Kat's group, and the bad luck for the women continued with her taking a nasty spill and badly spraining her right ankle. Damn. Things got much worse for our afternoon racing women however, with Rebekah getting taking down and painfully breaking her pelvis. Yes we were starting to rack up some nice ambulance time.

Jose doing some mud shovelling time outta the pit....

It was no secret too the lads I was on mid-west mullet watch for the weekend. First up was this bloke who really committed with the shaving of the sides and some ripper length down back.

This one was gold...like a Yeti sighting in the distance.....until..

...he turned out to be on event first aid! So with Kat coming down i could really work the camera angle for some gold coverage...nice perm

....plus some prime sponsor representation!

Things had dried out nicely for the Pro/1 showdown and was looking the goods for our race. Wanting to make amends from yesterday's crit I kept it cool early, staying out of the wind and letting the other teams chase and do all the work needed. Come three laps to I was feeling strong and I'd muscled my way up the front and was sitting pretty for a cash producing finish. Until two corners to go some 'insert preferred expletive here' decided he saw a line around a sharp corner that clearly didn't exist. I got chopped hard and had to get on the anchors. He, funnily enough, made it onto the grass after running out of road. So I lost all momentum and finished outside the top 30. Frustrating hell yes, but that's the way it can go sometimes. Next...

With a hospital visit the next morning to check on Rebekah, we got a pretty cool view 10 floors up of the crazy thunderstorm that just blew apart the city. Torrential rain and mega gust of wind left the roads in all sorts, flash flooding and trees/branches/power lines were down. We decided to check in to the race site to find out the latest and found....well, the pictures tell the story really..

With some uncertainty whether the racing would continue with some power lines down over the course, finally the green light was given and it was game on again for the afternoon's events. I swear if you didn't get up until after 1pm that day you would have had no idea of the morning's weather. The afternoon shone blue sky, heat and the ever present humidity. Unbelievable. The final crit circuit was the toughest of them all with a steep uphill kicker that turned a right hander into another uphill drag. However, this section turned out to be the most enjoyable to ride through. A crazy street party happened, compete with pumping music, Elvis suits, trash can lid banging, showered with the hose....just complete drunken madness going on really. So every lap despite the suffering it was pretty funny to be offered "$10 street primes" and see a guy in a Santa jump suit with a mop wig on his head run beside you.

So that was Tulsa. No real great results to speak of but a hell of a lot of random adventures along the way. Sunday night the crazyness continued as we were treated to a high class dinner by our awesome host house'r Joel at one of Tulsa's finest restuarants. We randomly met his old room mate from college there, a crazy wealthy land tycoon who proceeded to pay for all that we consumed and left us scratching our heads he was dining with 5 other ladies high as a kite wearing no shoes and board shorts. It was damn good steak....lator..cw.

The Wizard. We believe he put a curse on the team for the weekend and is in partnership with Toyota-United after complete event domination...