hey there,

well another edition of the tour down under is now done and dusted…  im happy its over, and happy to be sitting on a plane right now heading back to the best place in the world..  christchurch!  it was another epic race, with great weather too.  the atmosphere in amongst the race was just unreal.  if you cant afford the trip to the tour de france, i strongly recommend you make the trip to adelaide next year.  its the closest thing you’ll get to the tdf, and its wine country!  so many kiwis made the trip over this year and it was great to see.  i just want to say a BIG thank you for all the support.

the last stage today didn’t start how i had hoped..  i was really wanting a nice easy relaxed roll off the line, a few laughs, get some more sun on our ridiculous looking tan lines, and then ‘maybe’ we could just increase the pace from 20km/hr to 30km/hr.. NOPE! dreams are free!  it was on from the gun.. full full gas.  i think we had over 50km/hr average for the first 45kms, which is unreal considering there was quite a lot of corners… at the finish on a course with 7 corners we had an average of 46km/hr….  

i felt good, but not great, this was probably more mental than anything being the last stage…  this stage for me was one that didn’t really interest me.  its for the pure sprinters.  its pretty dangerous too and the last thing i wanted was to be spending the week all banged up before i head to europe..  i just helped the team as much as i could then sat back and watched the finale take place… 

the big gorilla (greipel) won again today..  he is super impressive and so powerful.  honestly his calves are as big as my quads.  he aint fat, he is ripped but man he has some muscle. hence why heading up hill he tends to go backwards at a great rate of knots!  his team did a great job today.  they rode perfectly.  you hardly seen them all race, but with 2 laps to go you started to see their train forming hoping to set their man up for the win.  you again seen a stellar lead out from hendy to set andre up.  hendy is a super fast sprinter himself but leading out he is one of the best in the world..  if he sprinted himself he could run a top 3, but that just shows how strong andre is having hendy at last man..  when hendy does his job right, which he does 99.9% of the time, andre is sure to win.  unless the wee pocket rocket cav is there with his train.  then its a real fight!  its like big man vs wee man lol!

lets talk about watts aye….. i was in the lift with my old team mate from last year, mark renshaw.  he run 2nd today and he said he could do nothing better to beat andre.  he was just sprinting full gas on andres wheel and doing
 1550 watts, which is huge for his weight.  so im guessing andre was hitting somewhere around 1700-1800w.  pretty phenomenal!  watts are always interesting.  i think cav’s max is only around 1400w.  but cause he is so low he goes very fast.  andre is much bigger than cav and has to produce upwards of 1700w at the end of a race to beat him.   so highest watts doesn’t necessarily mean you will win.  you have to have a cool head to win first, a good team and of course the big B word..  belief!

for our team it was a very successful week.  we won the teams classification and tiago was on the podium in 3rd place.  jan bakelandts was 6th.  benatti had some top 5s in the sprints, and the team was just a very strong well drilled unit.  very often do you see the whole team in front at the top of a climb, and up willunga we did that.  it was a special feeling..  and although i felt sick at the top of the climb hearing jens say ‘@#$% boys, its time to go to work’  it was awesome to see the peleton go from 140 riders down to 20!  and we still had 6 guys there.  

the willunga stage for me was a very important stage mentally.  although im not in top form, i got up the climb with the best guys, i was super strong after it, and now as i sit here and reflect a little i am really confident that my form is right where it should be.  its a strange feeling thinking that im not in top form but yet in this stage i felt better than what i felt when i was flying last year.  im not sure what that means but heres hoping its a good sign!

right so now im half way home..  i am back in chch for 10 days before heading to qatar on my way to europe..  goal for the next week is to firstly, recover and then get a good block of training in so that im ready for the dirty x winds that will greet us in qatar..

i get a feeling its going to be a good year..  heres hoping!  thanks for reading and again, thanks for all the support.

see you
roly