M&M (Melbourne and McKenzie)

Well here we are. I made it to Melbourne.
Melbourne seems quite different from Brisbane, so starters the daylight is a little more normal, and the rhythm of life seems a lot more European. Later nights and later mornings.

After sitting around drinking wine into late last night (late by Aussie standards, normal by European standards) we got up this morning, had a late breakfast and headed out for a ride at 10am. Oh thank God, back to a normal riding rhythm. :-)

Dave McKenzie, aside from doing TV commentating and live event commentating... AND organizing the Australian Revolution Track events, is also a cycling coach. So he had a client this morning. We rode together to his meeting point, and I then did my own big gear-low HR muscle intervals which Dave rode with his client. After that we rode through the city of Melbourne so that I could get a look at the place, stopping off in a groovy (similar to Georgetown in DC) area for a coffee, and we were back home some time after 1pm.

Melbourne generally seems like a much older city that Brisbane and the Brisbane area. Buildings are older and have more character. I've only been here a day or 2, but it looks like people here might be a little less into show and money... but I'll get a better judge of that in time.

Tomorrow we are riding at 10:30 or 11am I think. Great stuff!!!

On a different topic I see my team-mates over in Perth have been doing some washing machine series (I mean Crit series sorry) in Perth as guest riders for some Aussie club or something. Rather them than me... imagine starting you season with crits. Yuk. Mind you, I think they don't mind crits quite as much as me, so good on them! Hope they are enjoying it.

"Quick Robin, to the Bat island..."

I've been spending a few days up in Noosa, which has been fun. Although is has rained a couple times and I haven't done much in the way of riding, it's still been good to get out there and discover some new roads. This morning was sunny and I went for a ride with quite an international group. Ex-Telekom ride Kai Hundertmark was there along with ex-Agritubel and Slipstream rider Ben Johnson, with a couple of Japanese triatheletes, a Swiss mountain biker and a few locals.


The most fun was probably getting a good look at some pretty big Fruit Bats and some fantastic sunsets.

I haven't taken many pics recently, but I have added a few to: http://webphotos.aol.fr/galleries/green.simeon@neuf.fr/

I'm going back to Mooloolaba for the weekend, before flying off to Melbroune on Monday. Should be fun. It will be good to get back out on the road with Craigy Shepherd over the weekend as well.

Parrots

(Click on pics for larger images)

These stunningly coloured Parrots fly around the garden all the time. They sit in the trees as we come home, and then fly away as soon as I have the camera out. I've been longing to get a picture of these beauties, but they been somewhat elusive. Unlike some of the other birds over here, the Parrots fly away as soon as they see a little movement. So it is with that in mind that I am pretty happy to have finally got something of a picture of them. Admittedly these pics are far from great, but at least I'll be able to look back on them and remember stunningly beautiful colours of these birds. These guys fly really fast, and getting a pic of them has been very hard! (It's taken me 2 months to get these pretty bad pics.)

Around the World Team

The past week has been a good one! I've piled on more miles than ever in January that's for sure. Admittedly most of the miles were on group rides and were not "specific" workouts, either too easy or too fast, but at the end of the day it's January, and I just need to be riding, which is what I'm doing... and loving it!

My PowerTap cable seems to playing up, meaning I can't use it on the road bike anymore, only on my TT bike, and I'm not riding that very much yet. So I'm a bit annoyed about that as I don't have all the downloads and Training Stress info I had been relying on for training and resting. Hopefully I'll get that sorted soon, though not easy from here. Oh well, sometimes it's good to let go of all that stuff and ride according to "feeling" for a little while.

There have been a few things this week:

1st) Gaelle is coming back! She'll get here on the 10th of Feb and will be here for 2 weeks, so I'm really looking forward to that.

2nd) I got my flight to go down to Melbourne and hang out with Dave McKenzie for a couple weeks. I'm looking forward to seeing a new city and to catching up with Dave and his classic McKenzie antics. Just a funny guy!

3rd) but certainly not least. They have finally announced the racing calendar for 2008. It's certain now, we will not be starting the season in Africa. After our good showing on African soil in October we had been invited back for a 10day UCI stage race through Chad and Cameroon. Our DS has (probably wisely) decided that Africa that early in the season is too risky. We could very easily get sick and screw up not just our personal season, but the team's season as well.

So my first race will come just 2 days after landing back on home/French turf from Australia. That will be fun. And after that it is a fairly similar program to what I did back in 2006. After a few races we'll see how everyone is going and plan the next part of the season from there.

So there.. now that I have something firm to plan towards (specific races) I should be able to plan my training a little better.

Back home, some of the team went and joined the Pro Tour Bouygues Telecom boys for their training camp thank to our strong links with the Pro Team as one of their development teams.

Some of the team joined Pro-Tour team Bouygues Telecom's pre-season training camp. We aren't the Bouygues Telecom development team for nothing...

Some of the other riders have flown over to Perth for some sunny training, and Our Scott Lyttle pulled off a 3rd spot at the New Zealand National Champs with absolutely no training and beating a few Pro Tour guys. He's off to the Tour de Langkawi soon before getting to France to join the rest of the squad.

Some of the Team are in Perth...

So between the boys at home, the boys on the Bouygues Training camp in the South East of France, some boys in Perth, Scott in New Zealand and myself near Brisbane, I think it's fair to say the Team is blown all over the world. :-)

New Zealander Scott Lyttle was 3rd at the National Championships last week. Last year Scott did the Tour Down Under before joining us in France. This year he will do the Tour de Langkawi before joining us in France for some Spring races. Keep an eye on Scotty, he should have a good year!

Sunshine News

I never thought I would be so relieved to see sunshine in Australia... then land of permanent sunshine.

This weekend remind me of how special this place really place. The clouds parted for me like the Red Sea and we spent a weekend out on the bike pilling on the miles and trying to make up for the past week of glum and rain.

I spoke to Ex-Pro David McKenzie today and I will be going down to see him in Melbourne on the 28th of Jan (approx). It'll be good to catch up with him, and I look forward to discovering more of this fantastic country (and also hope they have less glass on the roads down there).

I also spoke to my mom today, and I may go and spend a little time with her cousin down in Tasmania next week. Would be a great opportunity to see yet another part of Oz.

On a slightly different note, I have been very VERY happy to find one of my favorite chocolates from the US available here.

Junior Mints: made famous by the Seinfeld Episode where Kramer inadvertently drops a mint into a patient on the operating table.

We also came home a couple days ago to find this friendly little critter (a Blue Tongue lizard) cheerfully guarding the house for us while we were at the beach. Thanks mate!

A Mighty Python glass act

Another stunning rainy day on the sunshine coast saw me once again forgo the morning group ride and head out alone a little later in the day for 2 - 2.5 hours of recovery ride. But after only 30mins guess what happened... a bit of glass found it's way into my new tire, and there I was, standing by the side of the road with images going through my head of my bike flying through the air as I threw it away and of me sitting on the next flight home. The cut in my tire was such that I had to put a leaf in there to stop the tube forcing it's way through the cut in the tire. I tried to ride on a bit to at least get in something of a ride...

which is when I came across this little creature on the side of the road. Apparently it is a Diamond Python... I have just now been told it is actually a Carpet Python, not dangerous they tell me... which is good because I had to get pretty close to take that picture with my cell phone. That was the highlight of my day. It wasn't long after that that I realized my tire was going down again and I limped home with a mere hour of riding under my belt and a very pissed off look on my face.

Rubiera Respect.

After whinging and whining (as I do) about Chechu Rubiera's web-site stealing a photo of mine of Alberto Contador from the TdF presentation, I had a couple e-mails from the guys who put together that section of his web-site. Both guys apologized which I really appreciate! Believe it or not the photo was taken off the web-site within minutes. As I said before I didn't really mind so much about Rubiera's web-site as he's a rider, and I believe riders deserve and certain understanding and respect. At the end of the day if they weren't around we wouldn't have anything to take pictures of. I actually found it quite funny in a way that Rubiera's guys (the ones I really wasn't too worried about) were the ones to contact me, apologies and remove the photo. I thank them for that, and have given them permission to use the photo should they so desire (though I'm sure they have better things to do than endlessly removing and adding photos.) :-)

I should also probably stop brandishing Chechu Rubiera's name around as none of this really has anything to do with him. He'll be sitting on his bike all day in the cold getting ready for 08. Here's wishing Rubiera a great 2008 season, which he will apparently be kicking off down here at the Tour down Under. This will be his first trip to Aus, and I hope he has better weather than I've had for my first trip to Australia. I don't yet know if I'm going to Tour Down Under, I should find out Friday, so maybe I'll get the opportunity to "shoot" him... on film of course! Now if HE were American he'd be suing me. ;-)

No that's not Rubiera out training, it's John Parks... I don't have a pic of Rubiera... yet.

Every Cloud has a Glass lining

It was another wet day today on the Sunshine Coast down here in Australia. I got myself up at the unearthly time of 5am to have a little breakfast (believe it or not the Aussies actually ride WITHOUT breakfast... really can't be good for you) and headed out the door to meet a group that rides pretty much every morning. I had planned to get up at 4am and be out at 5am to get in an hour or riding before meeting the guys... but the strong rain during the night easily convinced me to stay in bed that little bit extra. Actually Craig and I were both supposed to get out on the bike at 5am, but the rain forced him to stay in bed too, so... I'm not the only slacker. :)

There was no one at the usual meeting point today, so I figured I would head out towards the hills (towards the GLASS house mountains actually) and get in a couple hours all by my lonesome. Probably wasn't a bad idea as guys here stop for coffee half way through their ride and spend half the ride attacking eachother non-stop. Not really great training, but it gets my lazy ass out and on the bike, and they are a nice bunch of guys, so it's all good. Beats the snow and ice back home anyway!

Just as I headed out of town I rode over one of the endless pieces of glass the Aussies seem to spread all over the roads here, it cut my tire and I found myself walking home in the rain feeling pretty depressed and longing for my beautiful, peaceful and glass free hilly Tarn roads. :-) Of course that was until I remembered those roads are covered in ice right now. I reckon the Aussies must be the worlds biggest glass consumers... there's gotta be half the world's glass resources spread over every square meter of Queensland roads... Not sure if they all crash their cars a lot, or amuse themselves by throwing bottles out of car windows or what... hard to imagine when there is so much stunning and beautiful stuff to occupy them here... stunning beaches, great scenery... normally great weather. Maybe it's the hot weather turning the sand of the beaches into glass... hmmm... maybe if the rain stopped for a few days.

Sim's Tarn roads are better in summer than they are in winter... as you can find out in the latest issue of ProCycling magasine.

Well it all worked out anyway because I was due for a Power step test anyway, which has to be done indoors, so I got that done at least.

More rain tomorrow... not a bad thing really as it keeps Gaelle happy... she was pretty pissed off at the idea that it had only rained during her time here in Aus and that it was getting sunny again as soon as she headed home to the dead of winter.

Right then... time to go and plug in the step test results and see how bad I am!

A Lill bike for a mighty rider

Today I had a fairly long chat with Darren Lill. Darren was to fly out this morning to the US for training camp before the Tour of California, but when he got the airport in Cape Town he found out that although his name was on the flight list, his flight had not been paid for. Anyway, the team got him on another flight for this evening, but it meant he was sitting around all day with not much to do but surf the web, talk to me and send me pics of him playing with elephants and pics of his new bike. The flight thing sounds a little too much like our flight out from Paris to the Tour of Cameroon in October... we weren't even on the flight list for that one... but we got on anyway.

While surfing he came across a couple of pics online and got fairly excited. He obviously knew he was getting his new team bike when he got over there, but he didn't know what bike, what colour etc... until he found a few pics of a bike in the BMC factory with his name on it.

After riding for Barloworld and Navigators Darren will be riding for Team BMC in 2008, basically the old Phonak team... and they will be riding BMC bike (no surprises there).

Nice bike! Where's mine Darren? :-(

Sim in Spanish?!

Thieves steal Sim's stuff

So apparently one of my articles has been deemed worthy of translating into Spanish. Believe it or not it is my mother who somehow came across my translated article for a Chilean Triathlon publication. It's kind of cool to see people are reading my dribble and think it is worth translating, but it would be even cooler if people at least asked for my permission. Needless to say I'm not getting any "royalties" or payment for this translated article (which you can find here: http://green.simeon.neuf.fr/article_in_spanish.htm )

These guys aren't the first to steal some of my work without paying or asking me for permission. One of my photos recently popped up on Chechu Rubiera's website ( http://www.chechurubiera.info/amigoscontadornotebook.html see Bulletin 13). Seeing as this is a rider's web-site (and not just any rider) I must admit I don't quite mind as much as you have to respect the guy for his achievements.

At least both thieves had the somewhat dubious decency of crediting me for the stolen work. If I were American I guess I'd start a law suit... Ahhh, them yanks! :-)

Next time you want something, just ask me first... and pay me a mass of cash ;-)

Gealle: a better Roo hunter than me!

Oh, but something I do have to mention. On Gaelle's first full day here, we went out for a spin and on the way back Craig took us past the University. He said you can often see Kangaroos there. And crikey was he right. There were hundreds. Eating, sitting, play fighting it was amazing. The university was closed for X-mas, so the roos were out. But even though these roos are wild, we were able to get pretty close to them. This was a stunning first day for Gaelle who go to see and get real close to real, wild Aussie Roos! Later in the week she got to stroke a roo, but that was in the zoo, so a little different. In her short time here we also go to see Koalas, which as just the cutest animals, and we both fell in love with Wombats. They are so cute and cuddly... Great stuff!!!

This chap hasn't forgotten it's an Olypmic year!

Wombats: real live teddy bears!

A packed X-mas holiday (in photos)

While Gaelle was here over X-mas, we did and saw a load of things. To be honest we saw too much to write about. So I have added a few pics to http://webphotos.aol.fr/galleries/green.simeon@neuf.fr and that will probably have to do. We had a great time visiting the rain forests, waterfalls, seeing loads of animals at the zoo as well as coming across some fascinating (sometimes a little scary, sometimes fuzzy and cute) specimens in the wild.

Sadly for Gaelle the weather was pretty crappy while she was here, but that enabled us to witness some crazy rough seas and watch some nutters out surfing. Anyway, the photos should tell enough of a story... I'm too lazy to type ALL about it. :-)

A massive thank you goes out to Craig for letting us both stay at his house and very kindly allowed us to spend Christmas and New Year with him. Thanks Craig, we both really really appreciate and we had a great time (I still do appreciate it and am still having a great time :-) ). And another massive thank you goes out to John Friendship who lent us a car while Gaelle was here. Thanks to him we were able to do loads of stuff and see a heck of a lot of this little corner of Australia. Thanks John!

X-mas vacation - full time tourists

I've been off the blog for a while. Where've I been? Well, over the X-mas holiday period, my girlfriend Gaelle came over from France. We had a great time being full time professional tourists. We saw loads of really cool stuff and were busy seemingly 24-7. More to come on that, as it was a great time.

Belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Simeon Green – French Bureau (Aus & Fr) http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/default.asp?pg=fullstory&id=5546

Sim soaking it up in Oz… a long way from the frozen roads of France.

Joyeux Noel from Oz.

It’s that time of year again… or is it? I usually spend Christmas at home, in the South of France. Every winter, Christmas rolls around and wakes us up with its frosty (hopefully snowy) festivities. A tradition for me is to get up and go for an early Christmas morning ride, (or at least what we in France call “early morning”). There’s something magical and special about riding on Christmas morning. The frosted ground turns the area into a postcard winter wonderland, and this is probably one of the only times in our modern world when you can go out on a bike and listen to the sounds of silence traveling through the crisp cold air. Everyone is wrapped up warm in their houses, lights shine through the windows leaving golden shadows on the white ground where cars are crammed in the driveway as families get together for a long French family lunch. There’s something magical about being alone on the roads, seemingly watching the world from an outside point of view. This year however will be somewhat different. A far cry from wrapping myself in 3 winter jackets to brave the -4 degrees of our French Christmas morning in the middle of winter, I will be spending Christmas in Australia, in the sun and on the beach with friends. Christmas in the middle of summer, so is it “that” time of year, or not? Either way, I’m not complaining!Here’s wishing all the jolly readers of PezCyclingNews a very Joyeux Aussie Noel! May the New Year bring you all much joy and success, many great rides and a 2008 cycling season that promises to be full of surprises as we move into a new era.Ho ho hooo... I hope Santa brings me sunscreen!