Word Association

ERGO: monotonous, tedious lonely, boring, painful, masochistic, sweaty, uncomfortable, dreary, draining, incessant, insufferable, sphincter wrenchingly hard, KILL ME NOW!

ERGO: necessary, effective, efficient, beneficial, specific, intense.

It felt like it was only yesterday. I crashed, broke my collarbone and was bound to my BT ergo for a month of stationary salt crusted sweaty cycling. Oh Goodie. Well that was all the way back in January and time has flown. Since then someone has dialled down the clock and the last 4 weeks have gone sooooooooooo slowly!

Well, one good discovery I made yesterday is that I can start training again after a month of nothing. The dark side to this revelation, I can only do it on the ergo. Oh Goodie.

Basically, I can pedal OK, no pain, all good. But as you’d expect with a recovering pelvis fracture or two, stability is hard to come by and I still have 2 weeks to go before I can expect any real strength. Therefore, equipped with some towels and an I-pod I’ve got two weeks of joyous motionless exercise coming up. You guessed it, Oh Goodie.

You may be noticing a theme in some of my blog posts of late, something a bit like this,

Whine
Whine
Whinge
Complain
Life is so hard
Last minutes reflection on why life isn’t that hard and I should toughen up princess

Well, this one, it’s no different! I read about guys in the northern hemisphere who spend 2-3 months at least over winter doing all their training indoors while it snows outside! I guess we are just spoilt in Australia, aren’t we?

Other news is I have plans in the pipeline for some racing later in the year and also looking at next year. Fingers crossed it all comes to fruition.

Cheers,

Jono

Get Slammed

Last week I was lucky enough to get a try out on a set of SLAM Pedals courtesy of Raoul Leuscher

After following the progress of Nick Mitchell using these pedals via his blog . The curiousity got the better of me and I thought I just have to give them a go.

Well.
1) It's tough
2) It is actually like riding with a double leg motion but with only one leg
3) If I have any more debilitating injuries that stop me from using one leg whilst the other is still good, I now know what I'll be doing for my rehab!

Yesterday I got slammed to an even higher degree; I got my wisdom teeth out. Now I'm excitedly only a few days away from starting some proper training again, ye-ha!

Despite what everyone told me about getting teeth out; massive swelling, soup for a week etc. It wasn't that bad. The most painful aspect was being stuck in a crammed little ward next to 'Norm' from Traralgon. He runs an amateur radio station of his own, so let's just say he likes to talk, A LOT! But seriously he was a nice guy and I went through a bit of Forest Gump morning learning all about 42 (the meaning of life) from a self proclaimed country bumpkin.

Our morning together finished with a conclusion of sorts, whilst discussing the finer aspects of all the pubs in Traralgon, he said:
"Ya know, I don't smoke, I don't drink, but I sure do a lot of this!!!!"
*makes sexual motions with his left index finger and the circle created with the right index finger and thumb*

Laughing within an hour of having your wisdom teeth taken out hurts!

So what now?

Well.

No Murray Tour. No Grafton to Inverell, probably no Goulburn to Citi.

Getting my wisdom teeth pulled on Monday, I figure while I am supposed to be chilling out, I may as well get knocked out and have someone massacre my precious gums.

Plus nothing but soup for a few days is my secret plan to stay as light as a feather before Tour of Tassie.

So now instead of having a break after the Warnie this year I am having it now instead. So come nationals in Jan I will be on top of my game and hopefully have all bones in 100% working order.

I get some more radiation in the forms of an X-Ray and CT-Scan tomorrow to see how my pelvis is healing.

But to put it all in perspective, this tough nutter standing next to me here

Crashed on his skates and broke his back (I've been told he is in a brace and walking so coming along OK) So I need to toughen up and deal with my problems, because others have it much, much worse! Good luck with the recovery Toby.

Other than that, some guest blogging on Cyling Tips coming your way soon
http://www.cyclingtipsblog.com/

That's all.

Pubic Rami

According to the radiologist, mine have some undisplaced fractures. Chuck in a moderately intense oedema and some evidence of a periosteal haematoma and I've confused the hell out of everyone.


It's ok though, DO NOT FRET! There is minimal joint fusion, articular cartilage is preserved and the fibrocartilaginous labrum is normal, phew!

English: I am like an old lady with a broken pelvis. Hit ground hard, pelvis go snap snap.

Dam.

Double Dam.

Time to change around the season plans a little.

But it's really not that bad. I'll be riding by next week. This week I'll be visiting the methadone clinic to feed my addiction.

Updates as they come to hand

Bye!

EDIT-This is from my crash at Gippsland btw.

Spilling the beans on Java

Let’s cup the crap. No time for airy fairy waffle here. There are three crucial aspects to any cycling tour; the food, the coffee and of course the cycling. So in an effort to keep my rambling as succinct as possible I thought I’d shoot off a quick fire report day by day as follows:

Location: Jombang, East Java, Indonesia.

Pre Race
Coffee Report- Non existent! There is nowhere to get a coffee in Jombang, nowhere! What to do? Well Brad Hall our team leader took some directions and came back 750,000 Rupiah lighter with a coffee machine in his hands. It was a weird percolator style machine but it did the trick Excellent.

Food Report
Great. Dinner at a local restaurant proved to be a big winner, lots of good rice and noodle dishes, some curry, some sate skewers and some soup. Top notch. I was full, mission accomplished.

Day 1
Coffee Report
Sufficient. UHT milk and 3rd run percolator, I must have been desperate

Race Report
Lasted 20 k. Sore, injured, should have stayed home. Day not wasted though, spent the rest of the race (4 hours!!) in an ambulance eating peanuts and giving feeds and drinks to the autobus. A nice day helping out and watching a bunch of salt crusted blokes wobble all over the shop for the last hour of a 200k stage while they experienced what appeared to be all new levels of hypoglycaemia and the associated hallucinating/suffering/discomfort/urge to kill whoever suggested they take up cycling.

Dinner Report
Repeat of previous night. Again, flawless. The addition of Gado Gado (peanut + shrimp paste sate sauce on top of stack of vegies and potatoes) brought the level up another notch. Many belts were loosened. The locals were bemused at the silly westerners who had to ride 200k each day because they ate so much ate dinner.

Day 2
Coffee Report
Not bad. Brad had perfected the art of the percolator, 1st run was hitting the spot

Race Report
I spent day 2 in the team car doing a whole lot of nothing. Sad, boring, frustrating, but that’s was it. Did some feeding, ate some food my self but pretty much did nothing. Watched all the boys put their arses on the line for team climber Adam Semple who put in another solid ride.

Dinner Report
We made the move to venture to another restaurant, it was an interesting choice. We had no idea what we were ordering so we took the sensible option of ordering nearly everything on the menu. Only halfway through did another team arrive and translate the Bahasa jibberish to a more familiar English. As the words liver, heart and tongue made their way into the conversation most of the forks surrounding me were holstered with lightening speed. I took one for the team and finished off the offal but passed on the cold chicken, some boundaries are made for pushing, but chicken cooked who knows how long ago in a dirty kitchen with no fridge is getting too adventurous for me.

Day 3
Coffee Report
See above

Race Report
See above

Dinner Report
Back to our original haunt. Stomachs full again. Satisfaction level high again. Only difference was this evening we had fireworks, lots of fireworks! Needless to say, the hotel rooftop beckoned. The only comment I can make from that evening is that I can see why fireworks are illegal, they sure are fun, but they sure are dangerous!

Last Day
Coffee Report
Who am I kidding, percolator coffee sucks. Sucks! Give me some fresh ground, a good tamp, a big Synesso and let the magic happen.

Travel report
Suicidal highway travel, tediously boring plane travel, stiff, sore, generally down about life at this point in time.

Food Report
Did anyone say all you can eat buffet at the Singapore Airlines lounge in Surabaya?!? I got my moneys worth, let’s leave it at that!

Conclusion
Indonesia is hot. It is polluted and smoggy. It is not overly clean. The traffic is crazy. The coffee is lacking. But I loved every minute of it!

The people are really friendly, the food is fantastic (obviously if you want a chicken parma for dinner you’ll go hungry..), the exchange rate is brilliant

If you have a chance to go, then go!

Next up is recovery and rehab to get my left glute firing was again, some hard training and some SERIOUS uni catch up. Econometrics anyone?

Cheers,

Jono

Waiting

Waiting for my flight back to depart.

Waiting for my suspect looking cappuccino to arrive

Waiting for my last few bits of road rash to heal

Waiting for my emails to load.

Waiting for the diclofenac to kick in

But most of all I am waiting for my sore hip to heal so I can ride with vengeance once again.

The long and short of it is that I was not ready to race again by the time we rolled to the start in Jombang for stage one of the Tour of East Java. It took only 25k for me to pull the pin, must be some sort of record.

So I spent the rest of the tour just resting, eating barbecued corn from the street vendors and hanging out in the team car watching people suffer.

I'll give another write up with some juicy juicy details of all the highlights of our time in Java. But right now, it's time for sate ayam, gado gado, a touch of rendang and maybe a bintang or three to fuel another red eye flight back to the land of Oz

And on a random note I see that Durbridge won the Junior World TT champs, that is awesome news!

Bye for now,

Jono

EDITED- Sleep deprived grammar mistakes...

Rest, recovery and a million other things at once.

I am currently listening to last weeks Econometrics lecture giving me a thrilling review of last semesters fundamentals of probability, while typing a blog entry, while checking my baggage allowance for my flights tomorrow, while rubbing voltaren onto my sore whip lashed neck! What is the expected value of me completing any of these tasks properly? A bit rhetorical I think....

The long and short of it is, I am leaving on a jet plane tomorrow night bound for Surabaya and some more exciting Asian UCI racing. Many, many thanks to the West Australian Institute of Sport and their main supporter in Plan B Wealth Management for giving me another guest appearance in their line up, it's fantastic to be able to switch sides and go do a race like this on a one off basis.

Other than that, I shall try to get some updates from Indon but if not I'll get some reportage happening when I hit the tulla tarmac in a weeks time.

If there was one thing I am looking forward to the most, it would actually be the food. Trying some traditional Rendang or Nasi Goreng (I hear there are loads of rabbits in Java...) from a rickety old street cart is definitely what I am after, screw hotel meals!

Anyway,
Be back in a week!

Gippsland in Review

Well,
Sorry my daily updates disappeared but I was stuck without the internet for 2 nights, it was pure hell I tell you, no email, no cyclingnews, no facebook, but I toughed it out. And managed to leave half of my skin in the aptly named Paynesville.

The rest of the tour for me was good and bad.

On stage 6 I put my balls on the line or so to speak attacked up the road. Though unlikely to hold it I was yellow jersey on the road for a while, but a bit like poor old Cadel in his spat with Thor and Fabian; no one wanted to work with me! Oh well, I had a crack, drove the pace on the uphills and got some KOM points.

Other than that the rest of the tour consisted of crits and one other road race where not too much happened. I lost time in some splits towards the end of some stages which where a result of my laziness which was ridiculously dumb of me, and I also got leapfrogged by a few guys who took bonus seconds at sprints or KOM's. In the end I slipped down to 6th on GC, certainly a good result but the podium was beckoning. My VIS team mates all worked really well for me, it was just unfortunate we did not have radios for the race. It made for some spectacular miscommunications and coordinating a bit of protection from the crosswinds was impossible, but hey that's life!

Many more salad bars were demolished by some of Victoria’s hungriest cyclists and the best meal I had all week was a whole baked Snapper from one of the race sponsors; the Bairnsdale RSL. All in all we ate well this week.

Now I have to dress some wounds, get my bike sorted (somehow my sexy new bouwmeester carbons are completely true!), catch up on a week of uni and get ready to fly to East Java on Wednesday night. Busy indeed!

Ciao.

Taking Skin Donations

Stories Later....