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!

Training

Eating Humble Pie
OK, so since I've been here in Oz I've been pretty quiet about my training and riding. My blog has seemingly turned into a National Geographic wannabe, and for all anyone knows I've sold my bike and turned into a bird spotter wearing a long rain jacket and big thick glasses on my face. Well that isn't entirely the case... it's only half true.

Truth is I've been riding and training fairly well. That said I am having a little difficulty quantifying my training. When I first got here I had just been on my winter/off-season break and had been off the bike for a while. The first couple weeks were a bit strange as I got back into regular riding and got my ass kicked and handed to be on a platter by Craig and pretty much any other person we came across on the bike, including 60 year old ladies going to get bread in the morning. Ok, so people don't go and get bread in the mornings here, but Craig and the other Aussies sure were giving me a hard time. However I am now in my 4th week of Aussie life and I'm starting to feel ok on the bike again. I've done a couple of 20min uphill wattage tests and 1 wattage/HR step test to see where I am. I seem to be coming along pretty good, and the guys on the road here aren't making life hard for me anymore. I guess I ended the season in good form and it isn't taking long for that form to start coming back around. Actually Craig has really helped me build steady power. He's been going out and doing big gear hill reps, which is just what I need to be doing more of at this time of year. So, although he doesn't know it, and I would never admit it to him, he's been good to ride with. :)


Too much?
The Question is, am I going to be too fit too early for the Euro season? Compared to previous years I have without a doubt done more training than normal in December, but that's the whole bloody point of being here, so no big surprises there. I'm monitoring my fitness and trying to figure out what my progression curb is and hopefully I'll get it right and will be ready to fly once the season has kicked off and Iv'e got a few races under my belt back in Europe.

Of course the truth of the matter is, the fitter I get the more I enjoy my riding and I'll end up just riding regardless of when I hope to be fit... ahh.. so be it, that's ok, it's all about having fun anyway!!!

Where'da time go?

We've had a few days of rain here. Not all day type of rain but just the kind that makes snorkeling and such not great. But I've been thoroughly enjoying some nice long rides, and have even got a little more of Christmas shopping done would you believe.Christmas is fast approaching... and the last few days have absolutely flown by. I can't believe how quickly they have gone. And I haven't updated the blog or anything in quite sometime sadly. Doesn't feel like I've had time. How come? What have I been up to? Well I don't know, time must go by faster over this side of the world; I guess with us being upside down, we must be spinning backwards and hence time is probably going backwards. :-)

Anyway... Something I have been doing, is trying to get an Aussie Christmas picture for
Pezcyclingnews. We have been asked to get a little pic and write something about how we normaly spend chritmas and about how we will be spending it this year. So look our for that on Pez soon.

Oh yeah, and something else I've been doing is riding alone or with some of the local groups here... why? Well because Craig is big SLACKER and has been sleeping in and wimping out of rides all week!!! Oups, are you reading this Shep.. oh well, too late. ;-)

"Wild" life

Another one for books. The Snake Lizard thing I have since found out is a "Blue Tongue". They flatten themselves when they feel threatened. But today I came across this strange looking bird with a big flat beak. I'm sure someone (Craig probably) will tell me all about it soon, but for now I will just add it to the now very long list of "wild" wildlife.

Bit of a wet morning today, so I'm having a day off the bike. I mustn't forget it's still fairly early in the off-season, I need to build in more rest days, and probably do a little more on the days I do ride. With that in mind this weekend promises to be big!

Wednesday Snorkling

Today we got up and went for a nice ride inland towards the hills. We then had the usual coffee on the way home at the café overlooking the ocean. The water looked really good and clear, and that’s when I decided I would go home, grab my flippers and mask and go down for a paddle. It’s about a 20min walk to that part of the beach. There are closer beaches, but I’m a little scared of sharks (who isn’t?!). The water was great. Calm and clear. I saw a few fish, had a good paddle around and got a little bit red on the walk home. I guess most of my sun screen had washed off. There is a sort of pear/rock jetty that goes out into the water a fair bit at the one end of the beach. It looks like a good place to go snorkeling, but I didn’t dare got over there, or go that far out. Once I had finished snorkeling and was out of the water, I went and had a walk along the peer, and saw 6 snorkelers out there. I also spoke to a guy who said he goes snorkeling around there all the time, and it is fine. So I guess I’ll start adventuring out there a little more in the next few days/weeks. It’s just that that is where we saw the shark on my 2nd day here… Needless to say, this was a perfect morning!!!

Roo Hunt Success

Finally! I’ve been going out Roo hunting for a while and never seeing them, but yesterday evening, Craig was going for a run (he’s a triathlete) and as he’s seen kangaroos a few times while out running. So I figured I would tag along (on the bike of course), and take my camera. Once again Craig really pulled through. Seems that every time he takes me somewhere, we see some cool and exotic wildlife. As we approached the fields where I’ve been looking for them, we didn’t see anything. Then we suddenly glanced left and Craig said: “oh there you go.” And low and behold there they were. 2 roos standing there staring at us. They were actually really well camouflaged surprisingly. And with the fading light, the shots aren’t great. So we tried to get as close and we could to them, and woohoo, I have finally got my much desired pic of a Roo!!! We then carried on and went past a sports field where we saw about 6 more roos!! One of which had a little baby kangaroo in her pouch. How perfect is that?!

Morning Ride

This morning I went out with a group ride from town. It was a good ride and I’m glad I went on it. They went up a 6 or 7km mountain that is about an hour’s ride out of town. I was a bit nervous about riding with a group up this mountain, as the groups here seem to go all out all the time and spend their time attacking each other. But once we hit the climb I fell into my rhythm and felt like I was (almost) back on form and racing in the Pyrenees. Needless to say I couldn’t help but play the game a little, and I wasn’t too shabby (much to my surprise considering my current form). It also gave me the opportunity to do an uphill threshold test, the results of which were much better than I had expected. So that’s all good news. Then we rode home, and I extended the ride a little bit to get in 3.5 hours.

Beach

Over the past few days I've been settling into something or a routine. Ridding in the morning with Craig, sometimes prolonging the ride alone for a bit, then settling down to an afternoon of work, starting on preparing the Tour de France trips already.

I have also found out that internet use here isn't like back home. You are actually limited in your consumption... and I have already overused the allowed amount. So from now on I will limit the blog posts, and the pictures (if there are any) will be lower definition. In other words, I'll be brief (like the Pelican) :-).



Today I jumped on the bike and went for a "tourist" spin to the beaches and lighthouses of Mooloolaba. I'm still having a bit of a hard time getting used to being obliged to wear a helmet, even when I'm just scooting around in shorts and t-shirt using the bike to nip from here there, going to the beach, or riding on sidewalks. It's a really strange feeling. To me it feels a bit like walking down the street totally naked, but with dark dress socks pulled up the knees with very nice shoes on. It just doesn't feel right. What a pain taking it off to take photos, putting it back on, sweat running down my face as I pootle around town. Anyway, that's just the way it is... and it is the ONLY thing I would change about Australia if I could, because everything else is just flippin' PERFECT! Oh, except for they drive on the wrong side of the road. :-)

I went to watch people surfing, watched the boats come and go, and watched the endless jet skies do just that... "jet"... across the blue water. There is so much activity in the water you never get "board" (unless you are surfing of course...). ;-)

I sat on a bit of grass overlooking the bay and listened to waves crashing against the rocks below me. Very soothing.


I also came across a very strange looking lizard. It looked like a cross between a snake and a lizard. It was flat (as if someone had stamped on it) and was actually quite long.

I have been noticing a few of these massive container ships on the horizon recently... and this one is huge!

Riding and Roo spotting

This morning was back on the bike for some big gear hill intervals with Craig. After making the legs burn at 45rpm for about 1.5 hours we were at the coffee shop having our traditional morning coffee overlooking the blue waters. After that beautiful moment of relaxation, I headed out for a further 2 hours on my own while Craig went to work.
All in all it was a good day of riding. My wattage and numbers and what have you showed that I am not in quite as bad a shape as I thought. We'll have to see what the numbers say over the rest of the week, but I might have just been a bit tired from the traveling and not having ridden for 6 weeks... that might be why I hadn't been feeling too good. Either way things will come around with some solid miles in the legs, so it's all good!

PowerTap sent me a new USB download so I can now download my rides here in Aus. Once again the guys at PowerTap have been really great and helpful and have really helped me out. So another BIG thankyou to them! And specifically Jereme Nofke.

Roo spotting
As I was just taking a little break from doing some work (at home on the computer) Craig called me and told me someone had seen some kangaroos just outside of town. So I grabbed my camera, hopped on the bike and wound my way through the housing estates to this "prime Kanga' location." Just as I got there I saw a big roo gently bound off into the woods. Then 3 kids on bikes came round the corner on the patch of grass the Kangaroo had been grazing on. So I guess the kids scared him away. I am both very excited to have seen a real, true, free roaming Roo, and also very very disappointed not to have got him on camera. :-(

Oh well... I still have time, and I WILL get one!

SouthBank Crit

(Click on pics for larger image)




Sunday was a pleasant day. The Southbank Crit was on in Brisbane just up the road from Lawrie's place (Lawrie is the owner of Bikestyletours and it is he who put me up while in Brisbane, Lawrie actually started the big criterium in Brisbane many years ago.) Baden Cooke won the race and therefor the Australian National Crit Championships... a national championship that only seems to exist in the US and in AUS... sadly for Baden he will not be able to wear that National Champ's jersey in any actual races... but hopefully this is a good sign for the Baden's 2008 season with Barloworld.





A crash in the women's race


The day was plagued with intermittent rain storms which caused a few crashes and what have you. It was cool to see all those riders racing during the off season, even if at the end of the day it's still a boring round and round crit (or "washing machine race" as I like to call them).
Rain soaked the peloton more than once, but the roads quickly dried up

It was also really good to catch up with Dave McKenzie who was there commentating, and I'll probably go down to Melbourne and stay with him in the new-year. Maybe in Feb or something. Matt Heyman leads the peloton through the start finish

Brisbane Botanical Gardens

After a couple of days of morning rides and afternoon in the Bikestyle office starting to knock out some details for the 2008 Tour de France, Saturday was a day with a little more time to myself. The day started off with the usual 5am bike ride. Then I went into Brisbane, got myself a Subway (my first one since I've been here) and ate it on a park bench in the National Botanical Gardens overlooking the boats on the river.

I then meandered my way back to the house, via the Botanical Gardens and along the river the twists and turns through Brisbane.

Today (sunday) is the Southbank Crit. A "bike race" (not really a bike race, it is actually a Criterium, meaning a loop of about 1km they go around a million times). I had thought of riding it, but I'm no where near fit enough, and I hate those kinds of "races" witha vengeance anyway. So I will be going to watch, take some (hopefully) good photos of some of the big names who will be here, and catch up with some people I haven't seen for a while.
Once again, photos have been added to:

http://webphotos.aol.fr/galleries/green.simeon@neuf.fr