Not the start I hoped for.

As you have probably read, Rock Racing are not at the Tour of San Luis in Argentina and niether am I. They chose to cancel the trip due to a delay with their racing license. Here's how it was for me personaly. I don't know any more details so can only go by what is reported in the media.

It was within a week out from the tour when the story came up about the Baden Cook saga with Rock. The story that there was no money, only enough for 6 months unless additional sponsors came on board and so on and so on. Sure, i became nervous about the possibilty of missing out on this Tour. I had previously emailed Teri and was told i was the only mechanic on tour, so i knew i had to be going. I was looking forward to be working. I was in talks with Rudy Pevenage only a few days before about flight details and such, so everything was looking good. Then the day before I was due to fly, I get a brief email from Rudy reading that management have cancelled their trip to Argentina. Shortly after I recieved one from Rock management stating their reasons.

Was I pissed off? sure. I was feeling lots of things, dissapointment, angry. You want to blame someone but what good will that bring, instead you just have to take it on the chin and move on. In some way, when I read the Cook story i knew something might happen. So I was almost not surprised when it did, but I was very dissapointed anyway. I was thankful Rudy offered me the job, but in the end it was even out of his control. I was dissapointed my year would start this way, angry that someone had messed up, someone was not organised. But blaming someone else is no use, shit happens, get over it and move on.

In the end it was aparently their bank guarantee of the riders salaries that had to be in, and if it wasn't they would not recieve their licence. Rock obviously believed it would not all be through in time so they cancelled the race. There is alot to organise within a team, theres sponsors to secure, equipment to finalise and deadlines to meet for everything. The UCI require all the info from the teams budget to the riders on your team and its easy to lose track of whats got to be in by when. Its something that has to be organised well in advanced to ensure the deadlines are meet, but its easier said than done. In the end, two days out to the tours start Rock recieve the go ahead, they have their license and are allowed to start in Argentina, but its all too late. They decided to shift their focus on a camp and setting things up for the Tour of California, rightly so as its in their backyard.

So i've been at home, waiting to see what happens with the new team. I would love to tell you all about it but i can't, because i don't really know much about it at all yet. I have been out on the bike getting in some winter miles both on the mtb and on Lindsay's road bike. The snow has all gone now so I was back on the road last week which was a good change, until i came off going about 20km/h round a bend. The roads were still a little icey I guess. I tore my best knicks but I was more concerned for Lindsay's bike, its ok but she wasn't too happy. I was out again the next day but with a little more caution on the bends. Since then I have bought my own Fuga custom frame and are now waiting to build it up. I've always had team bikes here but its good to have my own now as come the end of the season I wont be stuck without a road bike.

None of this sort of riding this week, thou it is forecast the next few days.

Speaking of Fuga, its Gil and Rudi's (Dubois, a different Rudi) new team called Team Fuga-Down Under and is due to kick off soon with guys arriving mid Feburary, so I should be building those bikes up very soon, so stay tuned.

Cheers
Funky

I've also added a few extra photos to the lastest album, ones that previously didn't load up.

Christmas and the New Year.

Ok so im not sure who is slacker at blog posting right now, Tommy or myself.
I have'nt had too many fuga bikes to build like i thought i would have. The last one was before Christmas and was a carbon frame that was built up as a flat bar roadie, so that was something different. Other than that not much is happening in the way of mechanics, so here is what i've being up to the past few weeks.

Christmas was quiet, linds and i shared Christmas Eve by having dinner at Gil's with his family, which was nice as it was just the two of us last year and was a little too quiet. We arrived home around midnight, so we called the family in Aust who are 10 hours ahead. In the morning we opened the few presents we had. Linds got me a new workstand, a nice lightweight one to take away to Argentina. That night we sat down to a traditional Christmas roast lamb dinner, YUM. It was a good Christmas this year with Gil and Monique and 'our Belgian family', but is always different without family back home. Lindsay most enjoyed that she was finally able to communicate with 3 year old Arlen (in dutch, cos Arlen doesn't speak English, only that she loves you, also in French)


A few days later we decided to go on a day trip to the Flanders Fields to look for my Dads uncle from the first World War. We had to travel to a little town in France called Fleurbaix. There we found the cemetary and the gravestone of Private Robert James Howard, died in the line of duty 1916 aged 22. he was one of over 300 Aussies at the Rue David Millitry cemetary. Then we drove around to look at some other sites, like a museum with preserved trenches out back. Some guy was running this museum where his grandparents had collected all this stuff found out in the fields while he just sat in his chair charging us a fortune to get in. But it was worth having a look. We then moved on to the Tyne Cot cemetary, the largest millitry cemetary in the world, just over 12,000 soliders burried and another 35,000 names on the back wall without a grave. The day finished up at the Menen Gates where they have played the Last Post every night at 8pm since the war ended. Here at the gates were the names of 55,000 soliders whos bodies were not recovered from the war.


So it was almost New Years and i hadn't been doing too much on the bike. I broke the derailleur hanger off my mountain bike just before Christmas. Lindsay's road bike was a good option for a couple of days before I decided to just take the hanger off her mountain bike as it was the same. Only, come the weekend we both couldnt ride like we normally would do on the weekend, I had to get a new hanger. New years eve I did a tour with Sven nearby, it was a chilling -9.5 on the way there but was a good days riding, the forest was very dry and made a fast 40km day in the saddle. Then i made the 18km trip home by bike, so a good days riding.

But we were excited about New Years as last year we were back home in Aust, so this was our first here in The Netherlands. We were excited because for 3 days before New Years fireworks are for sale legally. So we went to the local hobby shop in a neighboring village and placed an order for some rockets. Then on the 3 days before new years you can collect your fireworks. On the 31st, all day kids were setting off crackers all around the neighborhood just for fun, not causing any harm to anyone. They dont have a public fireworks display here, they think that is more dangerous so they make the public responsible for their own actions. For the people that buy their own, they are responsible for the saftey of themselves and others by using the fireworks in a responsible behaviour, so no law suites basically. If you blow yourself up or someone else, thats your fault. I love the laws here sometimes. So earlier in the night we set off a couple of testers. We had Munge's left over crackers, and they were massive, and blew massive holes in our lawn. Rockets were goin off all around the streets too. Then around 10pm or so things went a little quiet and we wondered just actually how people would be setting them off, we thought they had finished. Come midight, we soon realised they were just waiting for the stoke of midnight. We set our 20 rockets off one by one as everyone else did in the street. From our backyard you could see the whole sky just lit up with fireworks from all around the neighbourhood. It was so loud and went on for an hour. We were then told by our neighbor that just in the Netherlands, people had spent something like 70 million euros on fireworks. It was a great night and no-one got hurt.



Lindsay's cousin Matt had arrived on New Years and was staying with us before going to Sweeden for studies. We went into Eindhoven to make use of the after Christmas sales and show Matt around a liitle, thou theres not much in Eindhoven besides the UFO shaped building and the huge bowling pins sculpture. During that week the tempatures dropped further and we woke up to a thick layer of snow in the yard. I thought it would be fun to go for a ride in the forest when its covered in snow, it was fun but hard work. The ground is frozen underneath and you are always pushing on the pedals and working the bars to control the bike, much like in muddy conditions thou you dont get muddy so its much better. For the weekend we headed to Maastricht for a look around, and i had to stop at a bike shop down that way so it was a good excuse to go. Linds and i have been meaning to get down to Maastricht for a look so it was good to finally do it.


So after a week of sight seeing, (not) enjoying the below 0 temps, It was time for Matt to leave for Sweeden (which was on Lindsay's birthday, so no breakfast in bed for her). The next day Linds was back at work and i was starting to get ready for the season ahead. After a week or so of (way) below 0 tempatures during the day and even colder at night, it will be good to be somewhere warmer when i go to Argentina. I used to complain about it being so hot in Melbourne sometimes, and said I prefer somewhere a bit colder. Not anymore. I'm with Lindsay and I want to move to the equator. It can be a pain in the ass here when the tempatures are low. I cant wash the bikes or car because the water drops will freeze before I get to dry them off, the outside pipe freezes up, and i can barely get into my shed as the ground is frozen and has pushed up the pavers so far the door wont open, and amongst other things, it's just mighty cold. Hopefully a real winter means a real summer this year.

Thats about it, i know i have'nt posted too many photos on the last posts so here is a few of what the past few weeks have been like. Enjoy.

Oh, a new team has come up and some contracts have been signed, but that's all the details that are available at the moment, so I'll tell you more when I know more.

Cheers
Funky