Hintertux - wk 1

We now have the weekend off after a very successful training week. The visibility wasn’t ideal, but we managed to set and run gates every day, learning to adapt and cope with the difficult conditions. I seemed to revel in the bad vis conditions which has made my ‘sunny day’ skiing even better. There were huge steps forward in my GS, but I did have a few difficulties in the SL. On Friday I only managed two runs through the gates; the first I crashed half way down and broke a ski, the second I crashed three from the finish and broke my goggles. I wasn’t hurt but it did waste a lot of the morning heading back down to change ski. In the afternoon four of us went into the Terrain Park and tried the last little jump and box. It was brilliant fun and good training for us to get used to air-time. This will be particularly important for the Whistler downhill as there is a massive jump three gates from the finish. Looking forward to next week and continued improvements.

Back to the TUX

I am writing from my room in the Hotel Tilerhof in Lanersbach, Austria. I arrived around midday on Sunday after a lengthy drive from Bath to a valley bathed in sunshine with the green fields filled with grazing cattle. However, over the past two days it has snowed heavily and turned the valley into a winter wonderland. The conifer trees are now heavily laden with snow, the fields are covered in a crisp white blanket and the cows have been moved into the farm buildings for the winter. It is amazing how suddenly the valley can turn from a summer’s picture postcard to a full on winter scene.

Skiing has been hard work as the visibility is limited, the pistes are quickly turned into mogul fields and some areas weren’t even groomed. It took Jane and myself about 20 minutes to get down one particular slope, as the snow was knee deep and both of us struggled to remain upright. Our buddies, Jonny and Georgia were working overtime to dig us out of snow drifts and try to get us back onto our ski. After one awkward fall it took the combined efforts of four skiers to dig me out, turn me and get me back upright. The efforts involved shattered all of us, and this afternoon I have spent a lot of time soaking in the bath to warm up and ease the aches. On groomed runs the day before I was skiing fast and in control, well ahead of where I’ve been on the first day of the season in previous years. My confidence is so much better than it was at the end of last season, I believe in my skiing ability and the chance of getting to Vancouver.

Castle Combe and faster.

This time around at Castle Combe the weather forecast was for rain all day. I mentally prepared myself for a wet day so that any dry time would be a bonus. As it happened, the morning was dry and the afternoon was wet. The circuit was slippery to start off with, so the instructor was keen for me to be smooth throughout the course and take things easy. I managed to practice staying on one gear and not braking around the circuit, which makes you think about your speed and the lines you take into the corners. However, on the second session I got caught up in a few 'chases', as I wanted to chase down the riders in-front of me and then over-take them. Whilst my spped increased, I wasn't as smooth around the circuit, so on the third session I focused more on what I was doing rather than anyone else. The result was that I actually reduced my lap times and caught up the riders I had been focused on during the previous session. Just goes to show that trying to be faster doesn't always work, you need to be smooth throughout the entire course.

The afternoon brought rain and a very wet session. A number of bikers ended up sliding in the wet, with the bikes taking more damage than the riders. My pace slowed right down as I returned to the drill of one gear and no braking. Some of the guys had specific wet tyres, so they were able to maintain a higher speed, but as I was just on my regular tyres I thought it was far safer to just pottle around and concentrate on vision. It made for a great day, I learnt loads and can't wait for the next season to get back on the track.

Now I'm focusing on skiing. Two of my races have been canceled, the same two as last season, and next weeks training in Austria has also been canceled. There might be early snow in Mamouth but the glaciers in Austria are struggling for coverage. The weather hasn't been as cold as it should have, although a large mass of cold air is meant to head there this week. Fingers crossed it snows enough before the official team training in November.

Counting down to Vancouver

The past weekend saw me join in with the rest of the GB Team for a paralympic GB training camp. We had some time on snow (Hemel Hempstead snow that is), lectures on sports psychology, nutrition and hydration, as well as updates from VANOC which covered the village, timescales and selection dates. On Sunday we did some interviews for the BBC and ‘on slope’ filming with Graham Bell for future presentation on the Paralympics. The BBC are not going to feature the Winter Games on television, but I think daily updates will be available on the BBC website. There will also be updates on Paralympic TV, which is the TV section to the IPC website. So basically, none of the races will actually be televised as the summer games have been. No real surprises there! We are a bit disappointed in the fact that the general public wont get the chance to see us in action, but at least we have made it to the website, which is a step up from the past. There aren’t any plans to come to any of the races building up to 2010 either, so no Road to Vancouver style programme, which again happened for the summer games. I can imagine that 2012 will have a different theme to it and will actually make it onto the television. I guess it is up to us to do some filming and get it shown locally. Any ideas?

First proper track day at Castle Combe

Up until now, the track days have been done at lunchtime with an instructor leading and one following, acting as rolling marshals. This time I was going to be thrown in with the rest of the bikers up there for the track day. I had managed to persuade Paul (another wheelie) to join me for the day, and Russ (from Atomic) was also going to be there. The two weeks leading up to the day had been glorious.....sunny, dry etc etc. Typically the afternoon before it rained and during the morning we had drizzle and patchy rain. ARGHHHHH. Still, not to be deterred, we arrived bright and early, got the bikes out, attended the briefing and promptly failed the noise test. Each bike has a test to see how loud the exhaust system is. Mine had just been changed to a Yoshimura system, which would give the bike more power (like it needed it - not), and the guys at the garage thought it sounded quieter. Russ and Paul's bikes also failed. Lucky for Paul, he had brought his standard exhaust, but Russ and I had to try to quieten ours down another way. Basically, if you heat an exhaust up, it will quieten down, a bit. After getting them red hot, both bikes scraped through. Russ's bike then over heated, spat water everywhere and threatened to blow up!

Out on the track things were much better. I spent the first two laps of each session warming up the tires and getting the feel for the bike. Then I could start to increase the speed around the course and even began to over-take other bikers. I would see one in the distance and start to chase them down, that was the easy part. It is far harder to over-take someone whilst remaining 'polite' and not cutting them up. It must be very cut-throat in races, as I found it hard to get past some riders who were nearly matching me for speed. I couldn't carry as much speed through the corners as I can't hang off the bike, so had to try and get them on the straight and into braking areas. It certainly makes the riding far more enjoyable and focused when you are thinking ahead to plan your move.

Once again the staff at Castle Combe were out-standing. They are incredibly supportive, very patient, interested in what we're doing (me and Paul), were able to help with instruction and made us feel part of the biking fraternity. You couldn't go to a better place for a track day. Paul enjoyed himself and can't wait to come again, but isn't able to make the last one of the season on the 7th Oct due to work. I. on the other hand, have booked and am giddy with excitement to go for one last blast!

I've not forgotten about skiing. It's about to take over my life for the next few months, so I'm just enjoying being in the UK before heading off for the most important season of my skiing career. All to play for.

Weekend skiing

Over the weekend I took part in the 12 hour ski-a-thon to help raise money for the Spinal Injuries Association. The SIA have supported the GB Team, as last year they gave £10k to the Development Squad to improve the podium pathway for disabled ski racing. I was part of the Atomic Ski Team, which included the reps, two sponsored skiers and a few ringers. The biggest star on the team was none other than Eddie The Eagle!! Yes, GB’s one and only Olympic ski jumper from yester-year. I guess he’s had eye surgery as the old milk bottle glasses had gone and I hardly recognised him from how he used to look in his Olympic hey-day. He was only with us for a short period of time, but it was great to meet him. I managed about 5 hours on the slopes, which was getting a bit icy in patches towards the end of the 12 hours. We did have a slalom competition in the morning, with two of the young, rising stars, setting the time to beat. The fastest time down the course was 14.3secs, my time was 18.9secs. Not too bad, and if you then take into account my factor, which we use to even out the differences in disability for alpine races, my time drops to 13.2secs….not that I was keen to point that out to Russ and the others – MUCH! You got spanked O’Neill and I’m taking you down on the track too (Russ is coming with me to the next track day on the 23^rd). The only real downside was that a nail/screw/metal edge had protruded out of the snow somewhere on the slope and trashed the bottom of my ski. A farmer couldn’t have put in a bigger furrow with a plough! So feeling a tad annoyed at that, but at least it was only a slalom ski, which is not my favourite discipline anyway.

Into my final year of the 30's

We are told that life begins at 40, so if that statement is true, I have one more year to go before I can really start having fun. The prospect of things ramping up is quite scary, as I've been enjoying a significant amount of excitement in my life up to now.

On my return from NZ I headed over to Castle Combe for the second of my track days. The weather forecast was one of high winds and torrential rain, not the conditions required for riding around a race circuit on a bike that has a power to weight ratio of that greater then the Bugatti Veyron. My bike weighs just 166Kg and produces 175Bhp, therefore spinning the back wheel and power wheelies can happen very easily if you open the throttle too quickly. Lucky for me, the rain held off, even though if the skies did threaten to open during one of the session. The setup was the same as the previous time; out at lunchtime with an empty circuit, one instructor infront and one behind acting as rolling marshalls. The speed built up with the progression of the laps, at one time I put together a succession of good lines, late braking and rapid acceleration, which caught Ian napping and I nearly overtook him. Not being sure of the protocol for over-taking the instructor, I held off. When we came back in, Rob - the instructor behind me, was gutted I didn't pass Ian. He would have used it for ammo for ever! The end result is that I have booked in again on the 23rd Sep and have been passed to join in with the main groups. There are only 12 riders out at a time on the Castle Combe circut, so it won't be massively busy and I've been assured I won't be the slowest out there. I have a few friends coming along to view and ride with me on the 23rd, all are welcome to join in for a fun day (fingers crossed we get weather like today).

Tomorrow I head to Milton Keynes for some skiing and TV interviews, as I am part of the Atomic Team which is helping to raise money for the Spinal Injuries Association in the 12hour ski-a-thon on Saturday. No one is expected to ski non stop for 12hours, so as a team we will take it in turns to be out there on the snow. This afternoon will mean ski prep and fixing the sit ski to use drag lifts again.

Not planning on doing anything big this year - bit late if I was! Next year, when I'm 40, I shall look into doing something a bit special. I can still remember my mum's 40th birthday bash - as the evening noise levels rose, Piran and I got into our sleeping bags on the landing where we could hear the laughter and chatter from the partying guests. We wanted to be a part of the celebrations, so by being there we could feel a little closer. Who would have guessed the way things have panned out since then? As you can see form the photograph, I've aged a bit, but am still about the same height!!

To those who have sent cards, messages and sung to me (thank you Freja), I am extremely grateful and thank you all for your thoughts and wishes. Here's to another year of excitement, adventure and learning about life.