Silver In Madison!

Tonight Alex Frame and I had the Madison which was 100 laps of the Moscow velodrome with sprints every 20 laps.. It didn't start off the best as i came down in a stack 3 laps in when there was a big crash ahead of me which I couldn't avoid. Oh well back on the bike and thrown back into it. As it was my first ever madison I didn't know what to expect and our race plan of holding back at the start and going for the sprints later in the race nearly paid off as we fell short to the strong Aussies by just 1 point!! so close to being world champs!!

Madison Sling with A-Frame

So now the team splits up and most head home apart from 5 of us who head to road junior worlds in Copenhagen next month. So back to Belgium for a few weeks for a road build up and mission to get my road legs back. Can't wait for the next couple of weeks..

Madison Podium Silver Medal

Cheers for all the support back home!
Fraser

Final Days Of Junior Worlds

Hello from Moscow...

Here are a few shots from the Teams Pursuit the other day...

On the start line of the Teams Pursuit (I'm 2nd from left)

Today myself and Scott Creighton had the individual pursuit which is 3000m or 9 laps of the Moscow Velodrome. Scott was off early in the field and set a time of 3.22.8. I was off in the 12th round and recorded a time of 3.23.3 which I was happy with as it is a new personal best.Two of the Aussie boys who won the Teams Pursuit came in around the 3.21-3.22 mark so Everyone was pretty close as the track wasn't as fast as previous days.. Scott finishing in 7th overall and Myself coming 9th.

Team in full flight around 60kmh (I'm at the back)

Madison Tomorrow with my partner in crime Alex Frame should be good. Haven't race one before so it will be the definition of winging it! Should be fun!

Happy Times, 3rd in the world, new NZ record by 4s, 2nd fastest time of the champs, 3rd fastest junior team ever,
 (4.05 for 4km)
Yeah boy

Fraser

Bronze in Teams Pursuit!

BRONZE MEDAL

So happy! team went great in the final producing a 4.05 after a 4.09 in qualifying to claim the bronze medal and set the 2nd fastest time at the championships + Fastest NZ junior TP ever! coming in behind Australia 1st and Russia 2nd, everyone is fizzing.. Following this result the team sprint girls got bronze and Hayden McCormick having a huge ride getting 4th in the scratch race..

So now I have 2 days off then the Individual Pursuit on the 20th and the Madison with Alex Frame on the 21st, looking forward to it!

Will update more over the next coming days.

Fraser

Moscow Madness

So we arrived at Moscow airport after a 3.5 hour flight from Geneva airport. Everyone was a little on edge after an early 4am wake up to catch the train from Aigle to the airport in Geneva. Anyway we loaded the truck with bike boxes then jumped on the bus to start our journey to the hotel. Journey became more like mission as we got caught up in traffic and a 1-2 hour drive normally, turned into a 3 hour crawl due to heavy traffic on the motorways but we made it!

View from hotel..

We settled into the hotel then walked to the restaurant which is at the track for dinner. It was funny to see how everyone piled the food on their plates at the restaurant as we were all starving having had nothing since breakfast. It was quite an experience to taste some of the dishes. There was liver with fat spread on it topped off with tomato and rice and pasta that was under-cooked, Delicious. Surprisingly everyone lost their apatite at that point.

Track from outside

Riding 300m to dinner haha

This morning after our delicious Breakfast of donuts (that’s all we trusted after last night’s experience) we headed out on a wee road ride around the bike park which is about 1km from where we are staying and has about 10km of circuit with a few rolling hills and cambered corners to mix it up. Off to a track session now to get a feel for the enormous arena. It’s 333m long a lap and 10 meters wide and just 2mins away from where we are staying so that is very handy..

inside the Moscow velodrome

massive

Big grandstand 

1 corner. Crazy

The team’s bonding well and gearing up to get into competition starting in just 5 days. Can’t wait!!

Fraser