Back on the bike

(In the words of http://charliefawkeridersblog.blogspot.com/) 'Sooooooooo', pretty much got over the illness now, but I'm going to leave it a few days before I ride again just make sure I am properly over it. I'm riding at Newport with the team on Saturday for a two hour session which will be pretty good and hopefully my new Deda Newton Shallow bars and orange Lizard Skins bar tape will arrive in time for me to use. It will be good to get back on the boards after the disappointment of having to miss the Madison at Newport last weekend. I am also looking forward to see team track star Will Kemp's new track machine, as if he wasn't enough of a machine before, and as long as Drew Holmes makes it further than the first banking this time then it will be good a trip!

On Sunday I'm going for a training ride with team mates Tom Laker (lakerman) and Drew. It will be good to get out on the roads again; my last decent long road ride was over two weeks ago now! I think I'm going to be out on the roads of Sussex a lot over the rest of January and then on into February in the run up to the season proper, hopefully the weather won't be too cruel to me.

This training will hopefully prepare me for the first round of the Junior National Series for 2011 which is the Cadence Road Race in Abergevenny. I had an absolute mare in the race last year as I got dropped on the first real big climb about half way through the race, but this year I have had a much stronger winter and I've got a whole year of road racing before me now so I expect to get a much better performance. Earlier today Team Manager Dan Bennett let us know that he has booked accommodation for most of the rounds of the National Series which is good to know. He also gave us a list containing information on every round of the series for this year. I immediately noticed that out of the seven rounds this year two are crits, one more than last year. The new crit which has been added has taken the place of a road race. This annoyed me as being a Junior, and therefore allowed to race on the road for the first time, I was hoping that we would have more road races this year not less. I am also frustrated that the race is way up north in Newcastle, we may have to bring u23 rider Matt Pilkington with us as I don't think any of the juniors on the team can speak the language up north. Seriously though, there are no rounds of the series in the Southern half of the country, except for Bristol but that basically counts as Wales and it's still a pretty decent drive for most people. Last year one out of the seven rounds, the Somerset Road Race, was in the south but that race has been discontinued for this year meaning that this season there are no rounds in the southern half of the country meaning for anybody living in the south-east the closest rounds are at least 3 hours in the car. However, as long as I can get to every round with enough time to prepare well I won't be complaining too much, just thinking about each round is making me increasingly excited for the 2011 season to get underway.

Tough course for first round of the Junior Nat Series, The Cadence Road Race.