good and not so good weekend

Clinton won the Blue mountain Blast MTB race in Opotiki beating Mike Northcott by nine minutes, I think that Clinton has some form still. In the 1st round of the South Island series Ash Hough went down and won the U19 race. He will be doing both series this year, so its a great start. Monique Avery won the U19 race as well.

and the bad was Dan W ..........ski at the crit champs, was away with Gordy in break only to crash with 5 laps to go, race over and Gordy hung on to win.....it hurts.

I like it when people achieve their goals and are happy

Hi shaun here as you know the race has been and did take part to achieve a time of 4:21.22 which is good I think as its only 1.22 off my old time so the question remains where to from here ???? as I have really enjoyed all the training and getting back in to the cycling so as it stands at the mo I want to do it next year but do the 4:00.00 mark maybe even break 4 hours what you think is this possible ?? I have attached my training sheet showing in colour what I did and what I didn’t do and first glance for me is there is heaps room for improvement as I missed a lot and the car crash didn’t help too but please look and see what you think and again a big big thanks for the program and helping me get back to some sort or fitness and really can only go up from here. Thanks so much and ill talk to you soon cheers again for the program and I look forward to your response

Thanks so much again for taking time out to do this program for me and getting off my ass to get to this point

Cheers shaun.s

great few weeks really

First up the tour of southland, four riders were down there, Logan, Clinton, Dan and Ryan. Sickness hit Ryan and Dan, but Clinton came away with top U23 and 6th overall and Logan finished top team and 3rd overall. Not bad for a couple of underdone riders. Oceania will be very interesting. And back up here in Rotorua Wade Mangham has been ripping in up. He has just finished first in both the Bike the lake event and the Rotorua to Ohope. He is also heading down to Oceanias.

Monique Avery World Champion

Fantastic result for Monique as she won the 15-19 Age class at the Xterra World championship in Maui yesterday. Her time would have won the next age class also, she will only get better at this game.

Junior Road Worlds report....will be in endurance mag soon

Junior World Cycling champs

How I was looking forwards to nearly 5 weeks with a bunch of teenage boys…..It actually turned out way better than I had ever imagined. We have real talent in our cyclists and this trip did nothing but confirm it for me.

The plan was to get in some hard fast racing, followed by a bit of recovery and adjustment to altitude and then the Worlds competition itself.

Stage 1 was the tour or Abitibi in Quebec Canada. This is the only UCI junior race in Canada and had riders from nine countries on the start list. This invitation gave us a chance to take the riders selected for the worlds and give a chance to those likely to be there next year a bit of competition at a very high level. So joining Tom David, James Williamson, and James Dobson, were Wade Mangham, Josh Brown and Simon “horsey” Honor.

We really had no idea how this would pan out but what a fantastic race it turned into. It started with a 400m dual sprint as the prologue, won by the later to be world TT champ, Taylor Phinny, yes that Phinny son of Tour de France stage winner Davis, and 4 x world pursuit champ Connie. We had Ok finishes, but nothing to say we were about to light up the race…..

Next was the Team Time trial, we didn’t have specific TT rigs for every one, so the result was as we expected, close but not quite there. Come the next day and Tom David was on fire, jumping away on the last lap of the finish circuit to win the stage and take the leaders jersey, the best young rider, the Sprint and the KOM. He flowed this up the next day with a win in the TT. I have never seen a TT like it, it started under ground in a Gold mine, in the dark!!! and with a 17% climb to get out!!.

At this stage we also manage to pick up the teams classification also, so we had everything.

The nature of the race was that it was going to go down to sprint time bonuses to win, and we just didn’t have the speed of Phinny, so he just slowly took seconds off till he eventually got the lead back on the second to last day. So we ended having achieved the goal of a hard workout for the worlds guys and gave the others some experience in the biggest race of their lives so far, a 9 stage tour. This was an absolute bonus that we really were a factor in the race and the guys were just glowing with confidence when ever we hot the start line. It’s a nice feeling seeing that in a bunch of kiwi guys, and they were also extremely supportive of each other and a real team was developing over the week.

So we finished the tour with Tom in second, the team in second and a bunch of cash to split between the riders.

So from here it was down to Colorado Springs Olympic Training Centre, we would spend a week here just recovering and starting a build up of volume and intensity as the guys adjusted to the altitude. This is an amazing facility, with everything laid on. It is set up completely devoid of government funding, but funded though commercial sponsorship.

So Mexcio was the next stop, training done, it was race time. First up was the TT with James Williamson and Tom David. Poor James had the honour of leading the field away, not easy with no targets to follow, but he gave us good split times to gauge Tom off. Tom on the other had was 4^th from last away so we knew what it would take to get a good time. And Tom gave us one, finishing in 5^th place on a “flat” yeah right TT course. This was our best ever TT finish in the mens race from memory so we were very happy with this. Both riders were smashed at the end, just what a coach likes to see, an honest effort.

So the road race, 115 starter, on a hilly hot course. We were told it would be a bunch finish but on seeing it we could see the field would be blown all over it. And that’s how it turned out. The main bunch just got smaller and smaller until the last 2 laps of 8 when the Italian, attack and the bunch exploded. We still had Tom and James Williamson in the chase group but that was about to explode also. So the Italians rode on to a 1,2,3 finish…..Impressive to say the least. Tom finished in the next bunch in 21^st place, James was in the next bunch and by then it was just ones and twos surviving the course. Did I say it was Hot!!

So from a coaching point of view, what had we achieved, we had a team of extremely confident riders start the world champs. We had three riders leave Canada knowing that they could have been competitive if they were in world’s team and hungry for next year. We have qualified a full team for next year in South Africa and Tom the “Gentle Giant” has turned some heads.

Just have to thank the assistance of Mike Leach, our Kiwi mechanic in Canada and Jason Rico and Cassandra Carry for the assistance in Mexico.

John Lee

Junior Road Coach

2007 Junior Worlds are over

taken from BikeNZ.org.nz

Bike NZ High Performance Director Mark Elliott said he was delighted with the results which were a credit to the initiatives put in place by Cycling New Zealand and Bike NZ. “The team was well prepared and performed strongly day-in and day-out which is a real credit to the coaching and management staff headed by head track coach Mike McRedmond and head road coach John Lee,” Elliott said.

Updates Late

Well so much has been happening so this blog has been neglected a little. I have been busy with Work, coaching and study.
The post grad course papers has been a success with good passes in the first semester, EX PHYS and BIOMECHANICS.
Clinton has been on fire in Europe on the road, the win is just around the corner. His results so far are impressing people over there.
Logan, after a long rehab is now back on the bike and getting back to race form, still a month away but every day is better than it was a month ago.
I have managed the national Oceania road team to Canberra and Gold coast, and next week Im off with the Junior road boys to the tour Abitibi in Canada and the junior world champs in Mexico.
I will try and keep up with some news and photos while away.

yet another happy cyclist

Hi John,

First road ride today since you looked at my set up. The new set up is awesome - you are the man!

It felt way more comfortable, no tightness in the back afterwards and it felt like a stronger riding position.

I will definitely be doing a lot more road riding now since it feels so good!

All the best for your overseas jaunt

Nina

great weekend

Well the tour of Te Awamutu has been and gone for another year, Wade pulled a strong 7th place with some great stages. He will be very good next year as a 2nd year U19. At the XTERRA Eloise and Nina in the pro fields got 4th and 5th but Monique dominated the 18-24 age group with a great win and by a huge margin. At the Secondary Schools MTB championships Ash won the XC the hill climb and the overall to be NZ Secondary School Champion. And over in Belgium Clinton placed 4th is a kermese and picked up a bit of cash. So its a great weekend.

Rotorua Junior and womens tour

I had a dream last year to host a race and target Juniors and also Women in an effort to bring more into the sport and also to develop them for harder challenges. Last year went so well the club backed the idea to make it a two day event. This year went even better with 120 riders in seven grades. pic is Monique Avery and the U19 and Elite women tour leaders.

news

Clinton has started racing in Belgium and showing great promise, Logan is still having trouble with his knee and is not racing. Domestically Wade Mangham has made the road team to Aus with me, and the others are gearing up for XTERRA. Its a busy time along with the study I have commensed at Uni of Queensland. And I might even ride my bike today

Oceania Championships MTB

well the news came back from Australia that Clinton has won again this time he is the U23 Oceania MTB championship. Now he is in Belgium and had his first race and by all accounts the team director now knows the gold that has arrived in his team:-)

Marathon champs

well the news is coming in, Nina 2nd in the open women, and Ash winning the Junior mens section. So three of the four titles for the riders, well done guys and girls, love it when a plan comes together :-)

more adventures

well its been a good week, I got a call from The High Performance Director of BikeNZ and was asked to be coach for the Junior Mens Road Team at the World champs this year. Of course I said yes right away as this is the direction i want to take my professional development over the next few year. I have also started back at University again doing a Post Grad Dip in Sports Coaching, 2 weeks in now and doing a lot of reading, first assignments due soon. Clinton and Monique are on winning form with National Titles in the MTB Marathon champs held yesterday, Im yet to get the report and how the others went.

Auckland National series XC races

Well Clinton did it again, but the big gain was Nina Trass pulling second in the Pro-elite womens race, she really is starting to improve now. And Ash had a solid race for second in U19 and sitting 2nd in series over all. Moniques suffered froma crash early in the race and never got going, still 3rd place so not a complete disaster.

great weekend

For the first time in a long time I could go to a mountain bike race without any official role. So it was great to roll up and watch Clinton and John Grays race. And to see the juniors where Ash and Monique haad won there races and Wade was third. It was fantastic to see Sonia back on the mountain bike, I think her first MTB race since the commonwealth games!!!!

What impressed me was the ease of Clintons win, the others were smashed after and Clinton was fresh as, and he won by 7 minutes. Also the UN19 Girls with moniques lap times faster than the U23 and all but the winner of the pro elite!!!!

NATIONAL CHAMPION

Well done Clinton Avery off the back of an introduction to big time races at the tour Down Under, he has got the goal that we had fro last year, and will be wearing the National Champions jersey in Europe this year. So we have achieved 1/2 of the goals of summer after missing out on the U23 road race.
Monique Avery had a close race in the Junior to finish in second place.
In the tour of Wellington after a crap start Logan rode strongly to move up the GC and hold the KOM jersey for a while.

now its just time to start thinking about prep for the international season ahead.

things are moving along

Clinton has just done the Tour of Vineyards as has Ryan Wills, both starting the year well with Clinton getting two 2nd places in the 4 stage race. He has had a bit of a cold so form is not 100% hopefully should be all go for next week at the Open Road Nationals. The Mountain Bike Boys and girls have been training hard uping the intensity in the final prep for the National MTB series.
and the sun is out.