The next day after my Sienese holiday I went to the John Ibbottson Fund meal, a great chance for me to meet all those who contribute to its sustained sucess, find out more about the organisation, more details about next year and meet the rider who was lucky enough to be lumbered with me on the Fund, George Moore. It was a great evening with so many people there asking about me, my recent success and wishing me luck for next year, all in all I found the experience quite humbling. The dinner took place in the lovely surroundings of the Tree at Box Hill, very apt really given that it is at the top of an iconic local climb and near where CyclesDauphin is, a shop previously owned by the Mills Family who are massive supporters over this Fund and who are now living where I will be in Brittany. There is no turning back as I have signed the contract. I also got to meet a rider who was the Fund this year who gave me and George plenty of advice for the coming year as well as meeting Deputy Editor of Cycling Weekly, Simon Richardson with whom I had a few shots with. Not shots as in tequila, my uni friends, shots as in photos.
Following on from this Tony Mills got in contact the following day with information of my upcoming races in France, the first being on 9th February. With all this happening straight after my holiday, it has been a bit of whirlwind and it has really started to dawn on me how close now my leaving date is. Pretty exciting.
It is especially exciting when considering I should be going on a 5 day training camp to South Wales staying with my good mate Graham Howell and his family, Graham is also a class cyclist and hopefully he will have similar success to what I have had this year. Then I will be undergoing a full medical in a South London hospital before I get shipped off to France. Hopefully a ride can be organised between me, George, Dan Lloyd, Simon Richardson and the Fund so as to find out more about Dan's role as a mentor and have a cracking photoshoot with them at the same time.
This leads on to my next point where on 9th December I will be going to the second Aprire team ride, this time in Maidstone. Really looking forward to this one as the team is having a photoshoot pre-team ride then after the ride we will be working on our body postioning, core and general biomechanics with the team's new coach Ben Wright.
It's all really intense right now, but I'm loving it, however I'm struggling to find the time and energy to go out and have a pint with the boys, I've forgotten what to go 'out out' is, I don't even really go 'out'. The life of a cyclist hey. Stay safe on these icy roads ladies and lads.
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