Today's weather radar ...

Rain ... everywhere rain!  Glorious water falling from the sky!  So, track racing at Blackburn isn't on.  We did an ergo session in the PowerHaus and then some weight training.  And, I didn't feel bad about not getting out for a ride in the rain.

We're promoting the Blackburn Australia Day Madison - I need to get some stuff done in time to get it to DISC tomorrow for the women's omnium, so that they see it and know that there's a women's madison.  Last year, 3 teams, maybe we didn't promote it well enough?  This year we'll try and do a little better. The website is here.

Tomorrow we're training indoors at DISC in the evening from 7-9pm, anyone's welcome to come, I need to see your licence and steal $20 of your units of currency to attend.

I had a chat with Mal Sawford on Sunday at the Blackburn/Hawthorn ITT on the boule', and he was interested in my promo cards I've done for the Bontrager Summer Sprint Series and the Blackburn Summer of Track.

So I've knocked this up for his consideration. You might recognise a couple of the riders in the photo ... One's a very successful aboc alumni and another is a former guest speaker at an aboc dinner! I had to put Frank in there too.

Last night at the BBN committee meeting we decided to pop a flyer in a mailout to all BBN members, so I offered to put it together.

An hour with illustrator later, and here it is, click it for the full PDF :

I'm off out to the Powerhaus now (wasn't feeling crash hot this morning, so missed training with Dino at the velodrome), then the Mermet later to coach and do some explosive lifting. It's all good ... except these creatine loading headaches! Must drink more water ...

Yesterday, the powerhaus and I rip out 4 sets of 5 @ 145kg deep squats, not bad.  Then some bench, 102.5kg, 3 sets; 4, 3 and 3 reps - that extra 2.5kg is a lot! I was doing 5,5,5,3 at 100kg last week.  Thursday is power day, squats in the morning then olympic lifts in the afternoon at the Mermet center in Hawthorn.

Then Nath takes me to spin and we run the session together as usual this year - 3 x 10s big gear sprints and then 3 x 30s sprints.  I manage a peak output of 1,375 watts. Ok, I wanted 1,400+ but was tired from the squats, that'll do, I've been consistantly improving over the last few weeks and am about to start focussing on more power than strength - the Powertap says around 180nm of crank torque which I'm happy with.  Nath swaps in and rips off a big PB on the watt-o-meter, top stuff Nath!  The bolla sauce was noticed to be a bit bland (I ran out of chilli) - so I promised the troops I'd double it up next week.  I think they thought I was joking ...

My clothing order's going to be delayed (again!) - Rowbust, who make them, get their printing done by Giramondo, and apparently there's a problem with the digital printer.  It's supposed to be being looked at today.  I hope it's a quick fix, one of the lads wants his skin suit for an ITT coming up soon and everyone wants them for the first round of the Bontrager Summer Sprint Series.  Speaking of which we're going to do a practice day the weekend before it, on the Saturday 27th Sept.  Details are at the website, as usual.  Free BBQ courtesy of aboc for all that come and have a go...

The Blackburn Summer of Track promo cards arrived yesterday too, so I started handing them out last night at Spin.  Congrats to Jamie Goddard for winning the Blackburn elite road championship out at Modella. Thankyou to Carnegie-Caulfield for running the event. CCCC really do set the standard for quality and number of road races in our combine.

Finally, I'm ordering a lenticular disc wheel, a Shimano 'Pro' wheel for track use - it'll be available to hire and borrow for selected events soon.

Just as we did for the Bontrager Summer Sprint Series, I've made up some business-card handouts for the 2008-2009 Blackburn 'Summer of Track' track racing program.

Here it is

We'll start handing these out at all the local bike shops etc, and hopefully it'll help make the '08-'09 track season at Blackburn better than ever!

I expect they'll be back from the printers mid next week (early September). If you want some to help hand out, let me know and I'll get some to you.