Review of Global affairs in 2012

Hey guys, hope you're all well, just thought I'd do a final blog before 2012 draws to close. What a year it's been. This blog was basically going to be an update on how my training is going before I head off to Spain on January 5th with the team but instead I'll do that afterwards (all you need to know for now is that it's going very well).

It's only when you think about all the big news stories of 2012 that you realise what a turbulent year its been. Of course the headlines have been dominated by the negatives as per usual. The ongoing conflict in the middle east, hurricane Sandy, the war in Afghanistan, unrest in many African countries, honour killings in Islamic countries, the Greek bailout, the Newtown shooting and many, many more. But for all the bad, there has also been a whole lot of good, and I'd prefer to focus on the positives of 2012 so that's what I'll do.

For me probably the biggest success of 2012 was the Olympic Games in London. It's the only time  I'll sit and watch sports like women's beach volleyball (ooosh), tennis, athletics and gymnastics but you know what, I enjoyed watching everyone of them. Even seeing Andy-the most miserable man in the world-Murray win gold was exciting, and I don't even like him. For such a small rock the UK did sensational in comparison with some of the giants like USA and China. The sense of Patriotism amongst the whole of Great Britain was just wonderful.

Of course in joint top spot was our national hero; arise Sir Bradley Wiggins. What a man. What a man. The guy is just the epitome of everything I believe in; his hatred of all that crap on TV these days that makes people famous for achieving absolutely nothing in life, his passion for the sport of cycling, his traditionalism, his wit, everything. He didn't just win the Tour de France and yet another Olympic gold like the BBC had you believing (which alone was enough to SPOTY hands down, which he did), he also won Paris-Nice, Tour de Romadie and the Crierium du Dauphine (yes there are other races in professional cycling than just the bloody Tour de France!). He has been our talisman in 2012, a symbol of everything that's great about Great Britain, and he's ours, and he's untouchable. Oh and he'll win Giro d'Italia 2013, you heard it here first.

Barack-the lad-Obama also won the US election which was a sigh of relief  for all us reasoned individuals the world over. Can you imagine if Mitt Romney won? The man actually believes in something called the sacred book of Mormon which was found on ancient gold plates buried in a hill in New Year just outside Rochester and that these plates were translated from Egyptian to English solely by an uneducated 24 year old called Joseph Smith. Furthermore he did this by looking into a hat where his magic peeping stone was sitting on which the English words appeared with the help of god almighty... that's not faith that's insanity, imagine a man who believes in such profanities running the global super power that is the United States of America. Luckily he is not and instead Mr Obama is, a man who openly stated he believes gay couples should be able to get married, it takes balls to say something like that in a country as religiously driven as America.

Lance Armstrong, what a massive douche bag. I know I said I'd focus on the positives but sadly this lying, cheating, doping, bullying, deceitful, untruthful, two-faced, obnoxious, repulsive man just crossed my mind. For 10 long years I watched him race bicycles, I looked up to him, I believed in him and I defended him. What a waste of time that was. And more importantly what a blow for our sport. Right when we're at our cleanest and doing more to fight doping than any other sport on the planet and being successful in doing so, Lance Pharmastrong dominates the headlines for all the wrong reasons and overshadows everything we've done to rid our beautiful sport of people like him. Alas the sport is bigger than one man, but he sure sent us a whole kilometre back in the fight to clear cycling of the outdated prejudice that we're nothing but a dirty sport.

And finally the little things that made this year great; Felix Baumgartner setting a world record for skydiving from 24 miles high. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was a little worried he'd just float away, luckily he didn't, instead he plummeted to earth at mach 1.24 (834mph). Philippe Gilbert's emphatic win at the World Champs in Limburg which I had the privilege of witnessing first hand and screaming to in a drunken and joyful state. Gangnam style was pretty big too although I didn't much care for it. We didn't all die like some idiots predicted after misinterpreting the Mayan Calenders. The Hobbit came out and boy was it exciting, I saw it twice in a week, I'm excited for part 2 already. A new breed of 'hipsters' were born, hopefully they wont be around much longer. (if you're unsure what a hipster is click HERE). Carly Rae Jepson released Call Me Maybe which lets be honest is just one of the best songs ever. It also led to Orica Greenedge's parody at the Vuelta Espana which is just the best thing in procycling since Lance Arm... Oh no waaaaaiiit, he's a prick. Finally a shout out to Matteo Rabottini for his victory in stage 15 of the Giro d'Italia, OK it wasn't exactly 'World News' but it was probably the most exiting thing I've seen since birth. When you keep in mind he'd been away all day, alone, in the wet, he crashed, he got caught by one of the best riders on the planet (Rodriguez) with 400m to go, got onto his wheel and then overtook him in the last corner to take the win you realise what an incredible feat of superhuman strength he pulled off. If I ever meet him I will kiss the ground he walks on.

I hope you've enjoyed my (mostly) positive take on 2012, 2013 is just a few days away, if it's anything like this year I'll be extremely chuffed. Have a great new year, get smashed, celebrate with your family and friends, stay safe and roll on 2013.
TB

BikeTreks RT December Boot Camp

View from the kitchen on Sunday

 While OPQS were doing obstacle courses and RSNT were off reading maps we too were holding our first boot camp in preparation for the 2013 season. Its fair to say there were a few mishaps... blocked drains, very dodgy looking risotto and one unfortunate pheasant but all in all it was a fantastic weekend. It was the first time all the staff, junior squad and U23 squad have all got together, this gave us a great chance to get to know one and other better. In all honesty it felt like we'd know each other for years, everyone had a great laugh, often at the expense of Jake and his advent calender.

main room where all the discussions and presentations took place. (I've tried to merge two photo's here using 'paint', it has not worked. Obviously.)

I rocked up at just before 8:00am, a good hour before the scheduled meeting time, keen as ever. Sandy arrived shortly after, we decide to partake in a bit of ice skating, although we had neither an ice rink or ice skates, just a lethal road and some matching converse. The rest of the team soon arrived and we all unpacked and sat down in the lounge area which was to be our main meeting point for the weekend. Nic (team owner/principal) and Simon (team manager) kicked things off by welcoming us all and giving a presentation on the overview for the weekend and a  brief introduction to all the different staff members. This was shortly followed by a presentation from Phil Leigh, Phil has had over 40 years experience in cycling from running teams, setting them up and racing himself, he'll be the director sportif for the team and also coach for a number of the riders. We had planned to do a ride at 9:00am before the first presentations but due to the treacherous road conditions we re-jigged the schedule and ended up having to drive to a nearby main road cafe at mid-day and ride from there. We loaded the cars and set off, I drove accompanied by Sandy and James. Along the way a pheasant decide it would try and take off travelling against the flow of traffic on a busy road, it failed miserably, at the expense of my wing-mirror. The lads all found it very funny, I however, did not. Eventually we arrive at the cafe and set off, the ride can be found here. It was apparent upon arrival that we weren't going to get much riding done this weekend due to the weather but the emphasis for the first bootcamp was more on getting to know each other as opposed to getting massive base miles in. We got back, had lunch and then had a chat from Graham Theobald, our clinicist and physio. He specialises in sports injuries and bike positioning and gave an in-depth presentation into both of these areas. Soon after I got to have a 1-1 chat with my coach for next season; Jon Taylor. Jon is a commissaire for British Cycling and also a very experience cycling coach, we chatted about good and bad points from 2012 and also objectives for 2013. During this time the rest of the riders were making dinner, well when I say making I mean putting all the available ingredients in to one big pot, from wine to egg and butter nut squash to some questionable looking meat. As predicted it tasted horrific, however nobody died so to that degree it was a success. We then had a bit more of a chat with Graham who showed us some more horrific pictures, reviewed the day with Nic and Simon and then went to bed. Due to lack of riding we weren't very tired so continued to do impersonations of Jonny's manx/scouse accent, who knows what happened in the juniors room, apparently they didn't get to sleep till 3 because Matt was busy texting his girlfriend... standard <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Cooking, sort of.

The next day (Sunday) we were up at 7:00am for breakfast and the weather had worsened from yesterday so the staff decide it wasn't worth risking any injuries at the start of December for the sake of a steady ride. Milan Sihelsky who is team mechanic but also road captain gave us a bike maintenance presentation, Milan is from Slovakia and an extremely accomplished rider having ridden the worlds and been national champion. We then embarked on some group turbo sessions run by Simon while watching a Sufferfest video which were a little bit painful. I always say it’s good to put things in perspective and this weekend was a perfect opportunity to do so. I was lucky enough to go to Limburg for the worlds courtesy of some fantastic friends in Holland, it was the best weekend of my life but those guys (elite men) are just on another planet. I think sometimes its great to draw off inspiration that’s a bit closer to home. I did my turbo session alongside Matt Flynn, one of the best juniors in the country, and Michael Ashurst, a 1st cat and elite RR winner, made me realise what a brilliant position I'm in for next season and what a fantastic opportunity I've been given. We then grabbed some pasta prepared by Nic, fair to say it was a lot nicer than our sorry excuse for cooking. During this time riders were getting massages and some were trying out some kinesio taping (Jonny on his calf, jack on his wrist, a few lads on their backs). I also got a massage and identified with my coach that flexibility was a key area to work on considering I'm about as flexible as a wooden plank. 

The weekend also gave us a chance to get a closer look at some more of our sponsor’s products. On arrival we were all given some tubs of Udderly Smooth chamois cream, we trained on the turbos using The Sufferfest’s videos and sampled the kinesio taping courtesy of Jon at Bike and Body. Milan also brought along some of his wheels from Remerx for us to look at and some catalogues with all the other wheels they produce. Having spoken with all the other riders we can’t stress enough how appreciative we all are of all the help from our sponsors, this sport depends on support from sponsors much like ours and without them investing in grassroots development cycling team like the Biketreks Racing Team the world of cycling would be much poorer in the long term.

After all this we got packed and had a debrief of the weekend where we listed good points (lots of them), bad points (few and far between) and changes for next time. I believe the next boot camp is 19th-20th Jan which is right after our training camp in Spain 5th-12th Jan, can't wait for both!
Hope you've enjoyed reading all the above and it's given you an insight into the sort of things that happen on a racing team's boot camp early in December. I'm sure all the pro-teams suffer blocked drains and poorly prepared rider meals, probably not high speed collisions with pheasants though...
TB

Milan and Si, Jon during his and Phil's presentation, Phil, some of the lads and Nic relaxing.

Turbo sessions, (top left) - Milan, Sandy, Jonny, Fabio. (top right) - Matt, Mike , myself

Room, pheasant damage, myself, sandy the handy man