R58 - On the Bucket List

During my daily routine I like to indulge in coffee, being from stovetop at home to chilling at local cafes drinking the black gold. There are so many variables in the pursuit of a great cup... different blends, machines, grinds and the Barista behind the machine making the long macchiato's (my cup of choice). Some long mac's have been less than ideal, some even being served in a soup bowl... WTF is going on there.

Anyway, a couple of my local joints that never fail to disappoint are Deluxe (serving up Havana beans) and Caffe L'affare both residing in my home town of Wellington. Either of these establishments are a must stop and they are cycling friendly. A few other good stops I've enjoyed (being sometimes based in Christchurch) are Fava in Saint Martins, Mudfish in Ferrymead, Pure Espresso and Joes Garage in Sumner. These are great places to stop mid ride and unwind for a little or a long time... you decide.

So on to my Bucket list... the R58 espresso machine below by Rocket Espresso Milano is just wow. Stunning to look at, and from what I've been told it's a beautiful machine to run, allowing a cafe style espresso experience in the comfort of your own home whenever you like... the stuff of dreams. For me this is a long term dream to achieve, but I'm sticking to it!

From the Heat of Asia back to the cold hard truth of the beginning of a New Zealand winter

After getting sick in Thailand and fighting for a few weeks to try and overcome it we then travelled onto the Phillipines where i was hopeful of starting to feel better - I still wasn't feeling right and that night before the first stage I had a pretty major fever - was very strange to have the chills and feel cold when it was over 40 degrees outside! I still wasn't any better in the morning but decided to start and see if i could just ride through it - this wasn't to be the case and unfortunately i had to pull out and became the bag boy while the rest of the team carried on racing in some pretty intense heat

After the race we made the trek back to Malaysia - still not feeling 100% it was decided that I would head back to NZ to try and get healthy and back to normal - it was also timely as Mike was due to fly into Malaysia for the remaining two tours. The fresh legs where a great injection to the team with the boys finishing 1, 2, 3 on one of the stages and Mike taking the overall yellow jersey at Borneo which was a pretty a huge result

I had mixed feelings about coming home - as I still wasn't feeling great I was looking forward to the comforts of home but i also really wanted to be there to finish the Asian racing block off with the boys

I am pretty proud of how things went for me personally over there - Placing 6th in the TT at the Tour of Langkawi and 10th overall on G.C and also 5th in the prologue in Thailand were the highs along with some solid racing and training with a great bunch of guys

I've now been back for roughly three weeks and am finally feeling healthy which is great - Based in Christchurch is proving to be a bit of a shock to the system - It gets pretty cold down here and when the wind blows it cuts right to the bone - Its different to being based in Wellington - you can usually always find a ride where you can hide from the wind but that isn't really the case here!

So the plan from here is to get back into some more solid training, hit the gym and keep the legs ticking over until the next opportunity to race comes up. The new yellow Zxellium Ultmates and Huez  shoes that arrived while i was away are the business and have certainly been helping to get me out riding cheers to Armstrong Sport and Chappy for getting these set up for me. Its good to be able to come back to New Zealand and have the continued personal support from Ricoh and Mavic to keep the dream alive as well as the Pure Black family of sponsors and Avanti.

Thanks for reading and i'll keep you posted on when and where i'll be racing next