12 Jun 2008
Hi folks, I know it has been a while, but Tim has been at me to send
through some updates and so here we are!! Lots of stuff has been
going on, new year, new team even a new fiancée!! (not that I had an
old one??). I just checked the last entry that I typed and it
was a long time ago, so there is plenty to get caught up on.
First thing that happened at the end of last year was the mutual
decision between me and my former boss that I needed to ride
elsewhere is 2008, and to be honest that decision really came a year
too late. All things aside, if it weren’t for having a 2 year
contract I probably would have tried some new avenues earlier in the
piece, but at the end of the day, it is what it is. In all my
time at Jittery Joes was great. During my time there we ran
the gamut of everything. The first year when we stopped
getting paid halfway through the year, the next year when we rode
for no salary, then on to the later years where we were more
professional and had some better riders. I guess the only
disappointing thing for me now looking in from the outside, is that
through 6 years of hard work to build the program to it’s current
form, the whole formula for our early success seems to have been
abandoned and it seems as though it is no longer about the riders
and racing.
And so from that decision to move on, I started my
search for a new place to land. And try as I might I couldn’t
find a pro team to have me, one director even telling me that I was
lacking a little in the hard work department (which made it sweeter
when their team led out a crit the other week and I rolled up and
smoked their sprinter!!). So in the end I landed with Team
Inferno. Formerly known as Abercrombie and Fitch, there were a
few guys on the team that I had previously known, and the boss
there, Chad Thompson was really excited to get me on board.
Its amazing how much somebody’s enthusiasm can have a positive
effect in you and I was instantly a hell of a lot more into racing
my bike for the coming season.
I turned up to training camp in Macon,GA in late Feb and being that
the team is amateur I was a little apprehensive and didn’t quite
know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised to find the
whole deal to be a lot more organized than I had initially thought
and looked forward to getting some rides in with my new team-mates.
And they proceeded to tear my legs off!! At that stage of the
game I had missed about 5 weeks due to a recurrence of an old knee
injury and then bought of some pretty stiff flu when I first arrived
into the country, so I was a little behind in my training.
First team race of the year was Athens Twilight. I was
definitely worried how I would do considering my ability to never do
great in that race, and my lack of early season training. I
felt like I had made up ground for sure, but behind the 8-ball is
still behind the 8-ball no matter how you cut it. But surprise
to say I actually rode great. I came around the final turn in
3rd spot, had a shot at the win, but lack of the extra little bit
let me down and got swamped on the line to finish 5th. That is my
best result ever at twilight and so my spirits were lifted. So the
Speedweek crits pretty much went the same, 5th places a 4th place,
all from winnable positions, and so I ended the weeklong series in
3rd place. On and on from there with more bike racing, I think
out of all the high level races that I have done this year I have
only been outside the top 10, ¼ of the time, and so if I can keep
that going I will be real happy.
In other personal news, a little while back now I went to the
jewelers, had a ring made, and presented it to my then girlfriend
Leigh and asked her to marry me. Much to my surprise, she said
yes and so we are headed down the path to wedded bliss. We are
planning our wedding for the 10th of October, and another one in
Australia for the 10th January, and from there on to our honeymoon
for some scuba diving up on the great barrier reef. Should be
some fun times.
Other personal news is my recent move into the coaching realm.
I got certified a little while back and have been running a monthly
madison clinic down at the track here in Atlanta and helping out
with coaching the Bicycle Little League program as well. I
have team up with Per4mancetraining.com for personal coaching and so
have been getting the word out there about that side of things.
One other thing that I have recently gotten into is Bike Fitting.
I had recently noticed and lack of great bike fitting cervices in
the area and so decided to do some research to add to my current
knowledge and so I am running the Bike Fit Systems system!! I
have completed a bunch of bike fits now and it has been going great
and while most of the knowledge for that stuff I already had in my
arsenal it has been a great learning experience as well, and
definitely very interesting. I have planned 2 days of bike
fitting sessions at Per4mance Training headquarters up in Charlotte,
and also following that with 2 days of clinics in Asheville for
track on the Saturday and criteriums on the Sunday in conjunction
with Asheville Velo Sports Performance Center. Some recent
opportunities with a camp up in Indy and helping out a college team
for their nationals have also recently come about, so that side of
things is going well.
Well that is about all the ramblings that I have for everyone, maybe
I’ll get my act together and type a little more, but I’m sure it’ll
take some hounding from Tim!! Until then, Adios…Hopkins