The Blog returns

Hey everyone,
For various reasons the blog has been on hiatus for quite awhile now. Here's my first post on the attempted comeback trail. It's fitting that this post comes from a different hemisphere and a race that blurs the lines of the 2010 and 2011 seasons-yep, that's right, I'm starting a stage tomorrow, the 1st of November. I'm in Invercargill, New Zealand for the Tour of Southland with the Jackson Plumbing composite team, made up of myself, Mike Olheiser, Cody Stevenson, Sergio Hernandez, Kevin Nicol and Lang Reynolds.

The race is 6 days and 9 stages starting with tomorrows TTT and 90k hill-top finish road race. Although the weather is nice at the moment the usual deciding factor of this tour is the wicked winds and rain, sleet or snow that can terrorize the peleton. I'm looking forward to a few of the hillier days and helping Mike for the GC. We've got a variety of international riders and the southern hemisphere's best talent, including a few protour riders like Hayden Roulston, Greg Henderson and Clinton Avery to contend with. More later,
Christian

I finally made a twitter. Follow me and all that stuff. @cparrett89

Bretagne starts tomorrow. Spent the last couple days checking out the time trial bike, it feels fast. Legs feel good so it's time for a week of hard racing.

relaxing on Jersey

First of all, if you're a cyclist in Georgia or the rest of the southeast, you should be at the Macon Cycling Classic on May 1st. It's gonna be an absolute stunner of a course and the race is put on by some great folks. I'm a bit sad to be missing it.

Our week on Jersey before the Tour of Bretagne is going by fast. The past few days have been really relaxing and we've gotten to see the best of the Island. We've been doing a decent bit of training, and although the Island isn't huge there are enough roads that the training is surprisingly nice. It's scenic and the weather is great right now so I couldn't ask for much more. Aside from training, we've been relaxing at our great host house or at Big Maggy's, just enjoying some down time.

I have to say yesterday afternoon was the highlight of the trip so far. Leo Mansell had us over for an awesome barbecue that almost made me feel like I was at home. Leo and his brother Greg are not only top guys, but pro racing car drivers as well. Their father is F1 legend Nigel Mansell, who I was honored to meet. The food was great and we all had an awesome time. We owe thanks to Leo for having us over, and to Greg for some strong work on the grill.

Just a few more days of vacation before we start the tour of bretagne on Sunday, I think we're all well up for it.

oops

Crashed out of the race yesterday early on. No injuries to report, just flipped into a ditch and conked my head a bit. The usual post crash soreness today, but road 4 hours with 2 super hard out of spite. Time to get ready for the Tour of Bretagne, which starts here on Jersey Sunday. Good news is the legs felt great yesterday so hopefully I can roll that into Bretagne and start getting some results.

At the moment I'm hanging out at Big Maggy's, an absolutely awesome coffee/high end bike shop here on Jersey that Magnus is part owner of. Check out BigMaggys.com to buy some of the awesome coffee they serve here.

I'll have more to talk about later I guess, for now check out a few of these pictures from training back in Wales

Hitting the road

After a few days with some nice training and great weather, we're hopping over to France again Friday morning. Saturday I have the UCI 1.1 Tour du Finistere. It's gonna be another hard race with plenty of Protour teams but it's a hilly course and the legs feel ok so maybe I can have a good race. From there we will head to Jersey, a British Island just off the coast of Brittany. We'll be spending the week in Jersey before starting the Tour de Bretagne, a 2.2 weeklong stage race that begins with two days on Jersey, then returns to France's Bretagne region for 5 more days racing. I'm really excited to get back to some racing and do my first proper stage race of the year.

I've been operating without much internet for the last couple weeks, oh the horror. Luckily I should have it plenty now. I'm settling in nicely to wales and the team and things are going pretty well. My first two 1.1 races have gone ok. Nothing spectacular but at least I haven't embarassed myself too much.

First up was Route Adelie Vitre in France. In the field were all the French Protour teams and Conti Pro teams along with a few continental teams like ours. The course was a hard, lumpy circuit with some small roads and wind. FdJeux team attacked up a hill leading to a crosswind section and blew it apart. I actually made the 2nd group of maybe 5 and then road back into the front, and made it through the hard bit by the skin of my teeth. Unfortunately I had a bit of a stomach problem that put me out of the race after the pace had slowed a bit. That was dissapointing, but I was happy that I'd lasted through the ridiculous lap Fdjeux put down that dropped half the field, including plenty of Protour riders.

Yesterday was Grand Prix Pino Cerami in Belgium. Aside from the mountainous races near Liege, racing in Belgium ain't my strong point. I road ok though, and was able to help a few of the guys on the team who are going really well. I spent the first 40ks going all out to make the early break, which ended up never going. After that I was suffering a bit. Then we hit a hilly bit of the course and I felt great and was riding well. Unfortunately after that things got a bit too belgian for me, meaning we hit a cobbled climb and some crosswind sections. I could tell I was bad in the crosswinds and I don't yet have the endurance for 200k races, so I tried to position the guys at the front and shield them from the wind whenever I could, then finally cracked after about 150k. If i'd made it another 10 or 15k in the front I could have been close enough to the finish to ride in, which would have been nice. Only about a third of the field finished and again, we were racing with the biggest teams of the sport like Quickstep, Lotto, Cervel TestTeam, etc.

Next up is Tour of Finistere, another 1.1 on terrain that looks like it might suit me. That is the 17th so I have some time to do some good training and find my form. I think I have the fitness to race these 1.1s I just need to get used to the longer distance and different style. And, after this, the races with smaller pro teams are going to seem easy!

christianparrett.com presented by caffeine

I made it to the UK fairly pain free, and am now battling jet lag with the answer to most of my problems-coffee. Being sponsored by a coffee company is a great fit since most cyclists are caffeine addicts, and I've had the chance to try both the Magnus Maximus blend and new Sprocket Rocket blend that Magnus sells. I know a bit about coffee-I at least won't try to tell you Starbucks is the greatest coffee ever and have run an espresso machine before-but I'm not gonna tell you I'm a real expert, so I won't try to sound fancy. Instead I'll just say that the Sprocket is awesome kick-in-the-crotch coffee that would be awesome as espresso, while the Magnus Maximus is smooth and tasty with a hint of cocoa (but not in a flavoured coffee/'I poured chocolate syrup into my coffee' way) that is still plenty strong.

For now I'm staying with the team manager outside of London in a town called Fleet. I got fixed up with a training bike so I did a good spin yesterday and am heading out for a few hours here soon. Magnus dropped by the house yesterday, it was great to meet him. He's a super nice guy and yes, very tall. He also gave me some team kit so I've started the first of several rounds of the mini-Christmas that is getting new bike gear.

Sunday night I'll head down to Wales and meet all my teammates and get settled in there. Then next weekend I'll start racing at the Tour of the Reservoir, a British Premier Calendar race. All the British pro teams should be there, like us, I think most of them have international rosters and race mostly on the continent, aside from the major races here. So it should be a hard, typical Euro race with tv coverage to boot. I'm excited to get to work.