New found motivation

Hello again,

Well it hasn't been long since i last reported but i think this one needs to be done. The past week has been going very well. I came up to holland on Friday evening to work on getting some time in the saddle away from the cold days Belgium produces. Although the snow has finally cleared, the wind chill is still high. So after 10 days off the bike, getting back into it in Holland makes it much easier especially when the conditions here at the moment are much like New Zealand. We have been getting up around the 13-15 degrees the past days and finally steering clear of the below zero temperatures Belgium has been producing for the last month. Also great being able to wear a few less layers of kit and back to one pair of socks instead of the 3 pairs and 6 layers i was wearing when i first arrived. So training has stepped up a notch due to some new found motivation. It's amazing what training with one of the worlds up and coming pro's does for the head. Today we again went training with Robert Gesink from Rabobank and just talking to him about wearing the yellow jersey in paris-nice makes you motivated to train harder than before. So i ended up riding for 2 hours with him this morning and have another race this afternoon. It is a 1 and a half hour criterium 25km from the town i'm in.

When it's cold and shit weather over here i find it's hard to get motivated. Wind is ok, Rain is ok but when they are both put together it makes it very difficult to motivate yourself to go training and training consistancy is hard but now the weather is good and the motivation is very good after a testing few months i think the form will follow and come May and June i will have some good fitness and hopefully put my hand up for a spot in some of the biggest races the team recieves starts in. But in saying that, it is only my first full season and i don't expect everything to come this year but a lot of good opportunities are on offer so i will do my best to make the most of them.

The other good news i recieved today is that i have been selected to start a big race in Belgium on the 10th of April. G.P. Pino Cerami – Wasmuel is a 1.1 ranked race and has a lot of the top protour teams on the start line so i look foward to my first taste of racing with the big boys. After that it will be full on for quite a while i think. With a lot of u23 racing taking place in the next 4-6 weeks. Josh's team manager has gone to look at another apartment close to the team head quaters for us today. So hopefully we are out of the farm house soon. The house itself is not so bad. It's more the fact that it's located a wee way out of town and stinks bad that makes it real shitty. So living in town will be a welcome change.

So i think for the next few weeks i will be trying to focus on getting back into training consistantly instead of it being all over the show and good things shall follow. It's now back to finding some leg speed and race legs for the next 6 months.

Josh and I have also been catching the bus and venturing into Verviers, the town 5km away and where the potential apartment is located, to check out some sights. But we always seem to be distracted by internet cafes or mcdonalds and most recently a new found love for waffles. These things have all been put on the back burning as we start to get into cycling mode again instead of the tourist mode we have been in for 2 weeks. I have to keep telling him when we go food shopping that lollies/cakes/chocolate etc is not good for the baby (just a wee joke we have going on) so we didn't put on too much weight while we wern't riding much. It's made even harder in Holland when we get looked after so well by the Wensink family and they don't know when to stop piling food on our plates. So for now it's back to rice and tuna diet to get back to race weight.

I have a race in Germany this weekend, just another kermesse, these are races where you just turn up and enter and you have maybe 200 riders on an 8km circuit with foot to the floor the whole way, before heading back to the Belgium base.

Hope everyone is well.


Ryan