Lots going on but nothing to write!

Again, I've neglected this over the past few weeks. I haven't much to say really - nothing that would sound interesting over a blog anyway. A lot of the things I've been up to are pretty exciting from my perspective though. With signing for Rapha Condor Sharp last month, I've had plenty to do and think about.
My first outing with the new team was a trip up to both the bike shop Condor Cycles and the Rapha clothing offices. I hadn't been to either of them before so it was a good getting to have a look around and chat to the guys and girls who will be helping us through out the 2012 season.
I travelled up by train and then a short tube journey across London to my first stop - Condor Cycles. It was a lot bigger than I was expecting and was definitely the cleanest bike shop/bike showroom I'd ever been in. I had a chance to wonder about looking at the different products before being fitted for our new custom Condor Leggero bikes. We were also fitted for our Giro helmets and shoes.
The Rapha offices were a short taxi journey down the road. We were given a tour around the very fashionable Rapha offices before being issued with some Rapha tops, caps and my first Rapha Condor Sharp team jersey! The quality of the kit is definitely better than anything I've seen/had before.

A few weeks later we were up in Sheffield visiting the Claremont Performance Hospital. It was a good weekend to meet a lot of my new team mates for next year, plus also getting some mandatory and very interesting tests done which gave an indication to where we were at fitness and health wise.

Since then I have been training away with long steady rides. I ventured over to Andy Spark's new training base in Alaro Majorca for a nice week in the sun (it rained most of the time). I got some good training done out there and it was good fun hanging out with a different group of people. Watching them train on the track definitely brought back memories after last year on the track. It was a hard decision to not ride the track this winter but its something I definitely want to come back to in the near future. I feel for this winter it will be a good opportunity for me to work on my road base and get a strong season with my new team. I think I will respond well to a winter purely concentrating on the road and in the long run will stand to my strength on the track and road.

In other news, my sister got onto the BC Talent Team - which has been significantly slimmed down over the past few years. So now we have myself riding for the Irish National Team and my sister riding for GB within the same household! I'm a bit worried that I think she's better than me... she's already won more national titles than I have.

I'll leave it at that!

Ciao
Felix

Times flying!

Just a quick post as I'm knackered!
Been putting in some steady rides whilst I've been here in Majorca. So far I've ridden everyday; 3.5 hours, 4.5 hours, 3 hours and today's ride was 4.15 hours.
Today was a good ride, heading out for a planned 4-5 spin, with Martyn, Recep, Sofia and David Muntaner - one of the Spanish team pursuiters - who was leading us on our route. I successfully managed to keep our quite quick ride steady by skipping all of my turns! However, the roads were wet and ended up covered in muck after a full day wheel sucking.
Tomorrow I plan to do another 4-5 hour spin with Martyn and David M. Which then leaves me two days before I leave for home... will try and hit one of the days with a 5-6 hour spin by myself before I fly home on Wednesday.
All in all a successful and very enjoyable week so far, and I'll definitely look at coming back here in December.

Adios!

Settled in

My flight from Gatwick was simple and easy. A quick 2 hour flight and I through passport control and bags collected within the space of 20 minutes. Although it had clearly been raining in the morning, when I stepped out of the airport I was greeted with 22 degrees and sunshine. I took a taxi to the track to meet up with Andy and the other guys.  We have a small training group here in Majorca - Sarah, Recep, Sofia and Martyn - and I got to watch a few of the guys suffer in one of Andy's stereotypical pain fests! It felt weird not being a part of the session and it did make me wish I was riding the track this Winter... but I need to concentrate on the road over the next few months and there was no way I could've bounced straight into a track season after a tough first year as an U23.
We are staying in a different place this year - last year we were staying in Arenal on the South coast of the island - in a place called Alaro. A much smaller town, right on the edge of the big climbs. I'm living in a house with Martyn, Recep and Mutlu. It's a really nice house, which is fully kitted out for us. Downstairs we have a gym and a watt bike room, whilst upstairs we each get our own big rooms. I've taken a few photos but the quality on my camera is terrible!
Most of the guys are on either rest days or short road spins today, so this morning I'm heading out with Martyn for a couple of hours and then I'll head off and do my own thing for a little while.

Majorca bound

This is just a post to test the new Blogget app on my phone.
I'm currently sat in Gatwick North Terminal enjoying a coffee. I have a grumpy man on a laptop sat opposite who is getting increasingly angry everytime I rock our off-balance table...
I'm in Majorca from the 15th-23rd where I'll be trying to do as many steady kms as possible, in order to build a good base for the latter part of the year. I'll be staying with Martyn Irvine and Recep Unulan. I spent the good part of 5 months racing and training with Martyn last Winter as we both tackled a full programme of UCI Track World Cups.
I've decided to concentrate on the road this Winter. I was knackered after competing all winter on the track to then go straight into the road season - it worked well at first and I had a string of solid performances for the first part of the season but I then noticabely struggled in the latter months.
I'll keep this up to date throughout the 8 days I'm away with Garmin and SRM files - for anyone who's intetested in that stuff!

Will stop rambling now,
Ciao

New start

Over the past few weeks I've started to get myself back into my training routine. My training will remain steady and relaxed over the coming 4 weeks, and will take a more specific and regulated route in the new year. At the moment I have been steadily clocking up the kilometres on short steady 2-3 hour rides. I have now reached the 1200km mark but I hope to be up around 3000km by Christmas.
I spent the weekend in Sheffield getting to know some of my new team mates at Rapha Condor Sharp. I drove up to North London on Friday evening to stay with my new team mate Oliver Rossi - Team Sinner. I know Oliver quite well, after spending 2 years racing and training with him as part of the British Cycling Talent Team.
We left early Saturday morning to arrive at our very nice hotel in Sheffield for 2 o'clock. We were about 90 minutes early, after allowing plenty of time for bad traffic, but we got to meet the Oxford United football team and have a nosey around the hotel before the others arrived. It was good to meet some more of my new team mates for next year - Mike Cuming, Jimmy Mach, Richard Handley, Tim Kennaugh and Luke Mellor. We spent the afternoon in some brief meetings, setting targets and going through our early season race calendar.
I was sharing a room with Mike and I think we both agreed the thing we were both most looking forward to was the meal at Nonnas. It didn't dissapoint! A large very nice steak was the highlight of the meal.
After sleeping off a very full stomach we were up and checked out of the hotel for 7.30am to head over to Claremont hospital for our day of testing. A nice healthy breakfast to kick start the day and we were away having meetings and tests. My day consisted of - EPG/blood tests, physio, medical, nutrition and finally performance testing. Everything went well and I learnt a lot over the course of the day.
I arrived home late last night, after making the decision to drive home straight from Oliver's. After numerous closed roads and diversions I managed to be in bed by 12.30. Today will consist of cleaning and boxing team bikes and packing to leave for Majorca tomorrow morning! A week in the sun and hills awaits.

Thanks again to Claremont hospital for a great weekend.

Felix

Our hotel

Oliver - Team Chef

Season 2011

Haven't blogged on here in a while.
Since my last post, I've been to the World Championships, enjoyed my break off the bike and have restarted my training again! Everything looking spot on for next season, with some exciting prospects.
I would like to take the time to thanks my sponsors from the 2011 season;

USE
Morvelo Cycling Apparel
Continental
Prendas Ciclismo
Red Venom
Science In Sport
Specialized
RTS Carbon

It was a really enjoyable season and I learnt a lot. The upcoming 2012 season is looking to be pretty exciting so watch this space!

Thanks
Felix

1st day back on the TT bike

It felt good to be back on the TT bike this afternoon.
I kick started my last training block of the season with 2 shorts TT efforts. I rode out to a short 8.5km circuit and rode 2 laps at race pace with a recovery lap in between.
It was a good session and it's going to help me work out what kind of watts I should be sitting at during my races this weekend.

Here are the garmin links to my two laps;
Lap 1 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/108657827
Lap 2 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/108657787

The rig for today's training