As I mentioned in my last blog I thought this blog too, would come to you as I soared in a steel bird above the earth’s surface. Alas, due to some travel plan confusion I would not be on my way to Utah for the Crushar in the Tushar.

Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise and I spent my first weekend at home in Greenville in as long as I can remember. A quick look at my calendar confirms the last weekend at home was the 18/19th of May!

It was good to get in some training on the fantastic roads in and around Greenville. They really are world class! Last week Thursday I headed on an epic ride out to Brevard with Brian, Alder and Butler. We did the Caesars Head climb followed by the Parkway climb up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was a hard but nonetheless fun day out.

Old water wheel on the outskirts of Greenville.

At the top of the Parkway climb with Butler and Alder.

This coming weekend it’s back to business at the SRS Asheville – French Broad Classic. The 3 day omnium kicks off tomorrow with a 16km or 10 mile Mercx style TT, followed by a 100km road race with two big climbs and finishes off with a crit on Sunday. A Mercx style time trial for those not in the know is one in which you have to ride a normal road bike and helmet. The idea is that it evens out the playing field as it does not favour the guys who own TT bikes and aero equipment. It should be an interesting day out with it being my first TT on the road in a good few years. An omnium is similar to a tour but the overall race is calculated on points and not time. I am really looking forward to a good weekend of racing!

Mercx style, just like the legend himself.

Greenville really has become a place which feels like home to Ash and I. We have made some great friends and enjoyed many fantastic times here. I will be sad to leave come the end of the season, although hopefully we will be back next year.

Next week’s blog will come from ground level once again!

Until then, ciao.

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!

 

 

 

After some frustration in the last few weeks I can finally put pen to paper, so to speak with some positive news! The team headed down south to Montgomery for the next round of the South East Regional Series.

 

The race weekend followed the usual format with the crit on the Saturday afternoon and road race on Sunday.

 

The crit course was fantastic; it was set in downtown Montgomery around the capitol building and had some nasty drags in it. Perfect! It really lent itself to a break going and I think that everyone was so attentive to this that the race ended up staying together. Our cracks off the front did bear some fruit as I had managed to snatch the mid race prime and DZ took a cash prime late on. The boys did follow anything that looked dangerous, as well as initiate a few moves of our own but as the laps ticked on by we knew we would need to get the train running into the finale.

 

Brian and J.Lo got on the front in the closing laps and really drove the pace, ensuring that no one would want to try and attack. They dropped Junior Mint and I off perfectly in the last corner as we kicked in the final 300m up to the line. JM went long and held the preying vultures off to take the win, as I came around the Project 706 boys to grab second, with Winston David rounding out the podium. It was a fantastic day for the team with J.Lo also retaining his lead in the sprinters jersey.

Come Sunday morning we were eager to repeat the previous day’s results. The road race took place on a slightly rolling circuit with a touch of wind. Again the attacks came but nothing seemed to be sticking. DZ and Brian got stuck into the Stan’s KOM competition and both grabbed some points.

 

With 2 laps of the 6 lap race left to go, we missed a dangerous move that seemed to shoot off the front of the race really quickly. We got the boys organised on the front and with the help of a few individual riders managed to ride the gap down from 1.30 to ten seconds. It was that sort of weird moment where none of the teams wanted to close the last part, as they knew the counter would come, but we all knew we needed to shut it down.

 

Ultimately at the end of the day the 9 riders managed to stay clear by a frustratingly close 3 seconds! I took 4^th in a mistimed sprint in the bunch to get 13^th on the day.

 

All in all it was a great weekend of racing in Montgomery put on by Start Smart Cycling. Personally it was great for the morale to get the results behind my name after a frustrating few weeks where I know my numbers have been good, but they haven’t translated into the results I would have liked. That is how it goes in the cycling world I guess.

 

On Monday I drove up to Chicago, or Chi-Town with Dilly. We spent a great evening with friends of his Joel and Ashleigh feasting on some delicious pork barbeque which Joel had smoked himself! On Tuesday morning we did the last 3 hour stint up to Fon Du Lac where we will be based for the rest of the week as we take on the Tour of America’s Dairyland which started yesterday and we race though until Saturday.

 

Another saffa reunion is on the cards as I will be racing with Jos and Christiaan! Looking forward to it! Until next time, arrive derci!

All Images Credot: Ash Smit

Often following a race which didn’t go quite as planned, the motivation to write about it, is as you can imagine, not high. Last weekend we had to sit in a car for a ridiculously long time to get to our destination and racing venue for the weekend, Tulsa.

 

Tulsa is a pretty bad ass city I might add. We managed to explore a bit of the city on our morning leg loosener spins on the numerous bike paths. We also found not one, but two awesome coffee shops! Something I can’t say happens often on our travels.

 

Exploring the city on the awesome bike paths.

A great coffee in an interesting mug….

Another highlight of the trip was catching up with a good friend from back home, Jos Le Roux. Jos has been riding on the Get Crackin team out of California this year. Our friendship goes back a few years, to my first year at University in fact. I think our trip up to Vanderbijlpark for the annual SASSU Student Tour cemented our friendship and over the years we have spent many hours together riding our bikes all over South Africa, Belgium and now the USA.

 

So the racing part, personally I didn’t get the results I aspired to over the weekend. A few weeks ago I wrote about that, sometimes when the racing doesn’t quite go the way in which you want it to, I have found that you need to take a step back and look at the bigger perspective. It can also help in looking at what maybe went wrong. There were a couple of things that looking back on the weekend I can now say: “Ya maybe we could have done that a bit better, and that wasn’t quite right”. We live and learn don’t we.

 Cry Baby Hill Craziness!

Image Credit: Danny Munson/Cycling Illustrated

Blue Dome Criterium

Image Credit: Cycling Illustrated

I must say that the organisers of the Tulsa Tough and the city of Tulsa put on an absolutely fantastic event! The Tulsa Tough is a sort of ‘stage race’ of criteriums running from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. Each of the 3 races was so well supported by spectators that it was an absolute privilege to be able to race in front of them. They created an electric atmosphere and perhaps this is why I was a bit more disappointed than usual. I had heard about the famous “Cry Baby Hill” and the crazy spectators, it was all and more than I can imagine. My words won’t do it justice, take a few seconds a check out the YouTube clips (It’s worth waiting for the video to buffer even if you have super slow internet!)

Video Credit: John Doe

Lastly, a huge thank you to our fantastic host house over the weekend: Stephany and Jeff. They had gone so far into welcoming us into our home, that Stephany had checked our bio pages on the team site and saw what our favourite meals were and cooked them for us on Sunday evening. Junior Mint and I were both blown away!

 

This weekend we are off to Winston Salem for the Winston Salem Classic which comprises of a criterium on Saturday and road race on Sunday. We still have a busy month of racing coming up with the next SRS race next weekend in Albany which follows the same crit – road race format before we head north to Wisconsin for four days of the Tour of America’s Dairyland! Exciting times ahead!

 

Until next time,

 

Ciao
Chris

Image Credit: Ash Smit

When I told my parents over the phone last week that I was doing a criterium on Friday night called: Friday Night Fights it sounded pretty bad ass, like I was going to a boxing match, let alone a bike race! ‘Skinny, leg shaven, lycra clad cyclists’ and ‘Friday Night Fights’ are not two terms that you would often hear in one sentence, yet it all happened in downtown Gaffney last Friday night.

 

Come to think of it, cyclists are actually pretty hardcore!

 

The race was an aggressive one and that was perfect as I was using the race as training for the upcoming Tulsa Tough this weekend. Tulsa will present us with 3 days of NCC level crits (AKA racing with the big boys) and ends off this coming Sunday racing on a course with a climb in it called: Cry Baby Hill. Pretty intimidating so I wanted to make sure I was ready!

 

Anyway, back to Friday Night Fights. The drag up the home stretch made matters hard which I liked. The run in to the finish was a lot about positioning or rather whoever had the biggest balls going into turn 3, off the downhill section of the course. From there it was a kick to the line, I came from pretty deep, from 4^th place in last corner, and felt I kicked well to take 2^nd on the evening. Ben Renkema (Global Bike) took the win and was just a bit too far ahead for me. Junior Mint also had a good evening of racing taking the Gamblers Prime (a prime on the second last lap of the race).

 

I was stoked to finally get on another podium; it really has been a while since my first race in the States. A couple of top ten’s along the way have been solid but I still aspire to go one better and the drive to that is deeply motivated at the moment.

 

With another race in the legs we were back in the car and on our way to Cheraw on Saturday for the Jazz Criterium. At least we were on our way to Cheraw after I double checked the race flyer on Saturday Afternoon, an hour before our planned 2 hour drive to Columbia. We had got the wrong address and after realising that we now had a 3hr drive, the car was packed in ten minutes and we were on our way. The trusty Garmin said we would arrive at 6.22pm, a good 38 minutes before our start, it would be tight…

 

The race to the race was going just fine until we encountered traffic as the result of a motor car accident while going past Charlotte. As we sat in bumper to bumper traffic inching forward our arrival time went up minute by minute… Fortunately, we eventually got past the accident and were on our way again. Parker had managed to register for us and had our numbers, the question was would we still make it on time.

 

6.46pm drive into race parking lot, jump out car, put on kit, get bikes and bottles, find Parkers car and pin up! We even had 5 minutes to get in a quick warm up in! No stress!

 

We were racing another 4 corner crit course although tonight would be pan flat. With a lot of attacks the speed was high, but the right combination was not forming and hence nothing would stick. As the peloton realised this, a sort of stale mate was reached as guys started thinking about the sprint.

 

Coming into the last laps, I found Junior Mint’s wheel and we held positioning well at the head of affairs. The run in was looking good and I was motivated to go one better than the previous night, until Junior Mint came crashing down on the first corner of the last lap.

 

Somehow, once again I just managed to squeeze past and not go down, but had to kick hard to get back into the front mix. I managed to get onto 6^th wheel into the last corner but it was too far back to get where I wanted to be and had to settle for 5^th on the evening.

 

All in all it was a good weekend of bike racing. I’m looking forward to Tulsa Tough this weekend and hoping I can carry some of this form through there. Check out info on the race here, hopefully I’ll have something bad ass to report on, from what I’ve heard I will!

 

Until next week,

 

Ciao

All racing images credit: Ash Smit

Over the past weekend, on two occasions, I have had two near misses in avoiding a high speed tumbles to the tar. Crashing is part of cycling and bound to happen at some stage to anyone. A few short weeks ago I made my last skin donation to the black stuff and with that in the back of my mind I wasn’t keen to make another.

 

The team raced in Albany, Georgia this past weekend. Deep down South! We would be taking part in the first round of the South East Regional Series in a criterium on Saturday and road race on Sunday.

 

The crit went pretty well. We managed to get Doctor J.Lo in the break of 6where he took 4^th at the end of the day. The doctor would readily admit that sprinting is not one of his fortes; however with a go at some of the sprint primes and his final result he managed to win the sprinters jersey! With 30minutes left of racing myself and Mr Wells found ourselves in an 8 rider strong move, our attempt to bridge to the front of the race wasn’t successful but at least we gave it a go. Although we were racing for 7^th, the boys set up an awesome train coming into the finish, Junior Mint managed to take the honours with myself getting 10^th.

Cruising up to the start of the crit.

The Doctor driving the break.

Image Credits: Ash Smit

With a delicious Thai dinner in our bellies (thank you Peter!) the boys lined up the next morning for the 145km road race. The course was flat, and with no wind to speak of I knew there would be a big bunch contesting the final gallop. With some 25km left of racing I managed to avoid my first crash. The racing got tight with the centre line rule in effect and after a bit of argy bargy, one of the riders lost his balance and put his front wheel into someone else’s derailleur and shortly thereafter found himself on the ground. After slamming on brakes I came to a screeching halt just before the mess of tangled bikes! Disaster averted!

 

After the first near miss we were back in the action hurtling towards the finish with our strong men on the front ramping up the speed. I found myself on Junior Mint’s wheel and felt good to give it a go. A rider from the Litespeed/BMW team tried to spoil our party and push into our train, Junior Mint didn’t allow this to happen though and after he tried to push in a second time the Litespeed/BMW rider lost control and ended his race early. Junior Mint and I just managed to avoid the pile up, but both lost some valuable momentum so close to the line. We kicked as hard as we could but found ourselves in 5^th and 9^th position on the day. Not quite the results we were looking for but something to work from I guess.

 

The positive to draw from the weekend was that the team rode well as a unit and combined especially well together in setting up the train on Saturday. Being one of the younger guys on the team is great as the opportunities it provides to learn from the older more experienced guys is awesome!

 

This weekend we will race locally building up to our next major race next weekend the Tulsa Tough.

 

Until then, keep the rider side down and avoid those crashes!

The team for the weekend with our cheerleaders!

Some pre race fun, we found a BMX track on our spin around Albany and had to give it a go! No Tubes all the way!

A bad ass car which I thought would fit in quite well in Pretoria, any Blou Bulle fans interested?

Rescuing The Future Champ.

A very sad thing happened on Monday, while happily puttering along Haywood road en route to the Haywood Mall in Greenville, the Future Champ’s engine cut out. The attempts to restart her was futile

I pushed her off the road into a nearby parking lot, and as we were near the mall headed off into it anyway. I got in touch with my Dad for any advice he may have on the situation and miraculously hoped that by the time we came back the Future Champ would kick back into life.

When we returned an hour later, it was not the case and Ash and I spent the next hour under a shady tree Googling and calling various scooter repair mechanics. We literally couldn’t find one who may be able to help us. Seriously?!

Google maps did show that there was a Scooter Shop about 2km down the road. So I suggested we take a walk down there to see if they could help, thinking that we could come back in their car and collect the Future Champ. If the Scooter shop was no longer there, a possibility, as I had tried to call them about 5 times already and wasn’t getting through, we would catch a bus home from the nearby bus stop.

Turns out the shop was gone, all we could see was huge car dealerships at the claimed address…

With not much other option we had chained the Future Champ to a pole and I hoped she would be fine. We got home and I eventually managed to get through to one mechanic whom I was referred to, but I would have to get the scooter to his house.

Problem 1 solved; problem 2 work in progress. I set about getting in contact with new friends in Greenville to see who may have a pick-up (bakki) to help us go fetch our beast. The pick-up search did not result in us finding a pick-up and with day light disappearing the reality was that the Future Champ would have to spend the night at the mall. I wasn’t too thrilled about this but the rescue mission would have to wait until the morning.

Fortunately, the ever reliable Brian managed to arrange a trailer, a dirt bike one at that, which made loading the beast even easier and we were off to rescue the Future Champ the next day. As we came over the horizon I tried to see if the Future Champ had survived the night and to our good fortune she had! Wow, what a relief!

We loaded her up and set off to the address I was given by the mechanic. It wasn’t quite what we expected, but the old man seemed friendly enough and had a number of other scooters he was working on. I have entrusted the Future Champs health into our new doctor’s hands, let’s hope he can pull off the risky operation!

Awesome Tour de Grove mural.

The Gateway Arch in St Louis.

On the bike riding front things have been going fairly well. The team ventured up to St Louis, Missouri two weeks ago to take part in the Tour de Grove, a 3 day crit ‘tour’.

St Louis was an awesome city with a lot of cool old buildings, the Mississippi and loads of friendly people. The Mississippi (who remembers getting that as one of the longest words in spelling tests in junior school?) was a bit grungy through the city, but was huge and I was told it gets up to a mile wide further down the river. The flood barriers were enormous and I found them to be quite interesting.

St Louis also has a huge arch, the gateway to the West, being the symbolisation behind it, and you can go up to the top. The view must be amazing, but as bike racers we needed to rest our legs… Oh and my fear of heights, but let’s go with the resting leg theory.

We also spent a night with amazing hosts the Fundoukos family and it was great to meet and get to know you guys, thanks for having us Ted and Jocelyn.

The first race of the weekend was the Midtown GP. From the team we had: Dilly, Junior Mint and I on the grid. I wasn’t sure how my body would react as I was fighting off the tail end of a head cold from the week. I started but soon could feel that it wasn’t quite right and did the tough thing of pulling out, only 15minutes in. In the bigger picture of my health, it was the better thing to do in order to rather cut my losses. Dilly had a solid ride coming in 19^th and Junior Mint 21^st.

The main race of the weekend was the Tour de Grove itself. The race was held in an alternative neighbourhood which we actually had a look around during a pedal in the morning preceding the race. It was an NCC race and we had a full squad of 6 riders on the evening including Brian, Reyes and Mueller joining us.

The course was a bit different in being triangularly shaped and had super long straights so it gave the course an almost circuit road race feel to it. Once again the UHC Blue Train ramped things up in the finale and took the W again… I was positioned too far back and couldn’t move up quick enough in the end for a good result and finished in the 30’s. Dilly was the highest place finisher from the team in 26^th.

Come Sunday and after dominating another hotel breakfast we were off to the Dutchtown GP. The awesome thing with the hotel that the race organisers had arranged for us was that we were in riding distance to all of the races. I felt the course suited me with an uphill finish but my leg’s however seemed to disagree and felt really heavy. I grinned and bared with it, getting a few GU’s down and hoping my legs would open up but today it was not to be. Junior Mint ran in a solid 18^th with me in 26^th and Reyes in 27^th.

Check out the Dutchtown Race Highlights here.

After a pretty solid but not exactly spectacular weekend of racing we were back in the car on Monday morning for the 13hour drive home. Fortunately we had Junior Mint to keep us entertained with many a laugh along the way!

Riding along the Mississippi, checking out the huge flood barriers!

St Louis was a scenic city.

Junior Mint taking full advantage of the Waffle House $6 buffet. 

The final chapter in my first Speed Week started with the Spartanburg Classic last Friday night. It too was undoubtedly the highlight of my Speed Week for a number of reasons.

With my Dad being out in the States on a business trip it gave him the opportunity to come and watch his first criterium. It was awesome for my Dad to see the race in person as photos, videos and my blogs can only go so far in describing the crazy experience that crits are. The Spartanburg race would also sort of be my ‘home’ race in the series and this meant I had a number of other friends from Greenville at the race. Additionally, I had further supporters on the evening in Ash my girlfriend and my Dad’s work colleagues: Des, Mike and George.

With added motivation, I was more determined than usual to do well on the evening. The race got off on the right foot when I attacked after one of the first primes in the slight lull in speed. I was joined by Andy Baker (Hincapie Devo) two laps later and together we stayed away for another four laps. It was awesome to have my Dad shouting from the side of the course! The peloton was not content to let us hover off the front for too long and we were swept back up for the cards to be again reshuffled. Fast forward to the last quarter of the race, with 20 laps to go I found the wheel I wanted to follow in the sprint and did what I needed to do to stay on it. Unfortunately I lost it on the back end of the course on the final lap but I still had a good run in to the line to take 14^th in the kick, it was definitely a step in the right direction but not quite where I want to be yet.

Check out my team mate, David Reye’s blog from the race. Reyes enjoyed the delights in air travel plane delays and literally had to race to the race make it to the start line on time!

With a solid result in the bag we were off to Belmont late the next morning, for the Belmont Criterium p/b the Carolina’s Healthcare System. We didn’t know it yet but the race would prove to be our longest of the week, with us racing for two hours. This may not sound long but when you have raced a crit and understand the intensity at which they are raced you will understand why. After struggling to get my cleat into the pedal quick enough, I didn’t have a great start and found myself way too deep in the 100 rider field. I knew I needed to move up and set about doing it as quickly as possible. The key to doing this is to pick off a few riders at a time using as little energy as possible. A big effort down the side of the field to steam roll yourself to the front isn’t always possible in a crit, and often if it is you will get to the front in the red and be popped in the following accelerations. Unfortunately for me I could see a big split 20 bikes ahead of me, with 20 riders going off the front.

The climb on the course literally splintered the field and eventually our chase bunch of not even 10 guys found ourselves a lap down.

Trying to look serious.

Rounding a corner, B. Hill in front, followed by myself & Yosvanny Falcon.

Image Credit: Ash Smit

1 x skin suit finished!

Fresh Roasties!

While rounding a corner I must have done at least 40 times in the race already I had the unpleasant experience of buying my first property in the States(cycling code for: I crashed). I slid out on my right hand side, acquiring some bad ass road rash and came to an abrupt stop in the barricading!

I was grateful to be lent a bike from the SRAM Neutral Support team and was able to finish the race in 26^th position. It had proved to be a real race of attrition with only just over 30 finishers on the day. Brian had managed to also finish and wrapped it up nicely with a prime on the closing laps.

With some roasties and a monsoon rain forecast for Sunday we were back in the car again making our way to Sandy Springs, north of Atlanta for the Global BMW Sandy Springs Classic. I was motivated to race nonetheless and finish the week on a high note. I was still gunning for my Top 10 that had eluded me thus far.

The day didn’t start as I had mentally planned it to, and I found myself caught behind a crash that took Brian down early on. After a neutral lap we were back in the action only to witness one of the UHC boys go down literally two corners later as we came out of the pits. While I avoided the crash again, I was now caught behind the split on a circuit where it would be difficult to close it. A group of 15 of us formed and we set about the chase.

Before long there were only 6 of us left and we were pulled from the course, as we were not able to close the gap. It was a disappointing end to the week, although in a sense I was glad my race was over before the rain started. I was stiff and sore and the risk of crashing again had become too high.

Pre race morning spin with Brian and DZ.

In the hurt box.

 Image Credits: Ash Smit

Looking back on the racing I am glad with how it went. I achieved most of the goals which I set out to attain and now am able to actually race the criteriums instead of ‘pack fill’.

I have a few easy days in Greenville now before we head off to St Louis, Missouri for the Tour de Grove this coming weekend. We will be doing a further 3 criteriums over the weekend starting on Friday night.

Until next week, ciao Chris