Dilly making ice coffee on the go.

With this blog post I now join the ‘club’ of athlete writers/bloggers who have scribbled away at 30 thousand something feet. It makes sense though doesn’t it? With travelling to so many events across the country and even the world sitting in a plane, provides a good opportunity to knock out a few words on our latest happenings.

 

With last week being my mid-season break, my blogging too decided to take a holiday and hence the delayed report back on the Tour of America’s Dairyland, or ToAD. ToAD is an 11 day tour, run omnium style, compromising of 9 crits and 2 road races. As it was an omnium you could choose which days you would or would not like to do, and with our presence at the last round of the SRS series we would miss the first few days.

 

Our first race would be the Altitude Sports Fon du Lac circuit race. I was excited to be getting in another road race under the belt, and racing on a circuit which I felt suited me compounded this. The circuit was rolling and had some wind. I got myself into a few strong looking moves only to have my race abruptly ended some 60 km in. I had crossed the centre line to follow a move and was promptly disqualified from the race. I was shocked; the bunch had been guttering down the left hand side of the road as well as attacking and using the left hand side the whole race so far. Additionally the centre line was not visible for more than half of the circuit.

 

 Images Credit: Tour of America’s Dairyland

With that disappointment behind me, we lined up the next day at Road America for another circuit race on a car racing circuit. Luckily this would mean there would be no further DQ’s, but I didn’t make amends and missed the main move off the day. Fortunately the Doctor was in the move and had a solid ride to place in the top 20. My fellow Greenville training partner and good friend Joe Lewis took 2^nd just missing the win by mere inches.

 

Our last two races of ToAD would be the Commonwealth Classic in Fon du Lac and the Downer Classic in Milwaukee. With the heavens opening in Fon du Lac on Friday night, I lowered my tire pressure and smiled smugly to myself. I know I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the Stan’s Tubeless system is awesome. The lower pressure makes corning a pleasure in the wet and I had a blast when almost half the field dropped out. I had good positioning coming into the final kick but botched my shifting and took 14^th in a pretty solid field, a satisfactory result.

 

I still wanted my top 10 and would have to do it at Downers, a race synonymous with a particularly large bar prime. How it works is that the spectators of the race all basically contribute into a pot and the bar decides when to call the prime, and then you sprint like crazy to try and get it. Another curve ball is that the line is not actually the start finish line, but outside the bar itself. It is a fantastic concept and was taken by Bahatti from Sharecare Cycling Team. I kept on fighting to try and have a go in the final, only to go down in a crash which took down a good number of guys 6 laps from the end. Free laps had just ended and that meant the end of my race.

 

After a good 12 days of racing in June and a busy season to date I was off to the Big Apple for my mid-season break. A couple of days off the bike and enjoying the city as a tourist was great, mentally and physically refreshing! Ash and I were fortunate enough to take in many of the sights and sounds of the big city and had a fantastic time with her sister joining us mid-way through the week. A big thank you to: Des and Coral, Doctor J.Lo and Dan and Maria for having us and showing us around the city.

The Aussie-Saffa lunch with our make shift roofing.

Enjoying a chocolate brownie from Cake Boss.

This week I am back in Greenville for a couple of days before I head of to Beaver, Utah for the Crusher in the Tushar. A unique half tar road/half gravel road race whereby you can ride on any bike you wish. I’ll be on a cross bike for this interesting event.

 

Until next time, when I’m sky high, scribbling out a few more words, ciao!