New Team and Merry Christmas!

Afternoon readers.

Hope everyone has had a good christmas. Apart from spending the first half of my holidays fitting my mothers new kitchen, i've had a nice relaxing time at home with my mum, dad, sister (who is home from glasgow) and friends. Yesterday I did a nice easy 30miler before the Xmas meal to work up an appetite. I can safely say that i've now seen all the turkey and chocolate I want to see in a while!

The thing I enjoy about this time of year is that it marks the time for when the real focus for the race season begins. Having already filled my alcohol quota with celebrations with friends over the christmas period, i've decided to use the remaining 10 days of my holiday to lay down some high volume training miles. The weather outlook is good so I might venture across the water for a couple of days and do some exploring. Not what some people would consider the best way to spend new year, but for me, being on the bike is what I enjoy the most, so that's exactly what i'm going to do :-) At the moment, i'm probably in the best form I ever have been for this time of year, and i'm feeling highly motivated so things are looking good.

For the next bit of good news, I've also picked up a sponsor from Sandy Wallace Cycles who will be supporting me for the upcoming season. He already has the likes of Hamish Creber on the Team so it will be great to be riding and racing with other top cyclists. Thanks to the support given by Sandy, for 2009, I will be riding an Orbea Alma (same as Olympic Champion Julien Absalon). It should be in my hands in the next couple of weeks so i'm very much looking forward to recieving that. I'm building it custom spec as i'm a fussy blighter with my bike setup, but it will look something along the lines of the pic below. I will keep you posted on the full spec, and the build should come in around 19.5lbs by my calculations which saves 1lbs on my trusty GT Zaskar build, while gaining a heck of a lot of stiffness. Heck, if it is good enough for Absalon, it will sure be good enough for me!



So thats about it for the moment. I hope everyone has a great new year if I don't post again before then. Slainte!!