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G’day,

I remember back to January when I had a break after the Nationals and Bay crits before building back up on the km’s before coming to the states. Everyone was asking what I was doing. I gave them a “just relax, its January, I want to be going well in April”. Well April has arrived and past before you know it. That’s not a bad thing, I’m happy enough with the way things went and I did everything right in the build up to one of my major goals for the season, Tour de Georgia.

I did my big month block of km’s in Jan/Feb and arrived in the US going reasonably well. That combined with a lot of racing my form came up well and I think couldn’t have gone into the tour feeling anything but confident. What I meant by my previous comments is now that Aprils over, what do I look at next as a major objective? For me it’ll be Philli week and Tour Beause in June. Sure I’ll be going into every other race motivated but they’re the next two races I want to aim for.

So Tour Georgia turned out to be alright, but not brilliant. I was really aiming to ‘shock a few’ last week. I finished 20^th overall and three times in the top 20 in stage finishers which is good but like I said I was looking for something special.

The first two stages were long road stages finishing with short hilly local laps, both ending in bunch kicks. The first day we had Neill Shirley in the break for 90km and coming into the finish I attacked on the last climb on the last lap. I got brought back before getting caught up in a crash on the last corner. The second day I finished 14^th in a sprint, that was more of a drag race over the last climb, round two corners and to the finish. They split the bunch (and so they should) but changed it back to bunch time after so many complaints. So some old mate that was in 70^th position still climbing the hill as we’re finishing gets the same time, right!

The reason I needed those extra seconds is the third day was a 40km TT. Anyone that knows me knows I’m not a huge fan of these. It was hilly circuit with some technical sections, so it wasn’t as bad as it normally would be for me. I road within myself to finish 41^st, and couldn’t be too disappointed. I did what I wanted and limited my loses.

The next two days we hit the mountains and also bad weather. The first day ended up in a 50 up bunch kick after the group split to bits over the last climb but was still 30km to the finish. The second of the two days finished up the infamous Brasstown after two solid climbs earlier in the day. Brass town was the only climb I hadn’t seen because when Hoppy and I did our three day training block in the mountains we left it to the last, when our legs were smashed. We went to the coffee shop instead, although still had 150km in the legs. Anyway, it’s one steep climb and is as hard as they say. I finished 20^th in the stage and that moved me to 20^th on GC.

The last day was suppose to be a flatish roll into the finishing circuits. It was anything but flat and if you had a bad day, you would’ve felt every km of it. The circuits were controlled, the early break brought back and it was a bunch kick. Tour over and it was off to have a few quiet ones at the after party.

The other good thing about this week was, it was a great chance to catch up with mates from European team, Aussie and non-Aussie. It was great for the morale to have a few beers to unwind every night with Nick Gates, Henk Vogels and Sean Sullivan. I almost forgot how funny it was to be rolling along in the quieter times in the bunch sharing stories with Gatesy.

The last three days of the tour was when our team also throw a publicity stunt by changing our team kit to orange camo. It got a few mentions and actually looked pretty cool.

Since Georgia I have just been kicken back at home in Nashville. The legs nailed for the first four days after the tour and I spent a lot of couch time in between coffee shop rides and a round of golf.

Today I arrived back in Athens for tomorrows Athens Twilight criterium. There’s a lot of talk about the race and how big the crowd is and how hard it is. With a 9pm start in the main streets of this uni town, it should be interesting. I was happy to hear this arvo that all the riders that rode Georgia have sore legs too and have also struggled to get off the lounge.

This week we have the US crit’s, six criteriums in eight days, then back to Nashie for two weeks before hitting the road again.

Cheers,

Willo

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