Apres Velo Blog

This is my Uncle Russ and me. I wasn't standing up straight -that's why I look smaller. I have 4 "little" cousins as well who are all bigger and tallerer than Uncle Russ - obviously my mum didn't feed me right when i was a kid and this also explains why everytime i see my Aunty Andy she has a kitchen full of cakes and bickies for me to take home.
 
Anyhow, I digress... this is the shed of dreams and everytime i go out to Dural and enter this shed... it's like I'm home. This is only a tiny bit of it and every wall and even the roof has stuff carefully stored to be used at some time down the track. It smells of oil, petrol and rust and I love it.

Uncle Russ can make & fix anything -so when i send my mad hatter sketches to him he says "no worries, Rene". Below are pictures of the new stands he made out of old bike bits. He's retired...and he's so kind to make these for me. Aren't they cool, though?


He's made 6 different ones for Bike Temples to try out. I have sent more drawings to him that we will make up including shelves and hanging racks made from handlebars.

I'm off (I know) to make chairs for the Team Lottof Girls to rest their weary behinds after winning races- Apres Velo!

CTM.

APRES VELO sponsored a winner last Monday, when Grace Verbeke won the Tour of Flanders riding in her LOTTO LADIES TEAM colours.


See race report below from LOTTO captain and lead rider Rochelle Gilmore

Grace made history today when she won the Ronde van Vlaanderen! At 25 years of age Grace has become the first Belgian female to win the Tour of Flanders. It must be every Belgian riders dream to win Belgium’s most famous classic, and what better way to do it than with the Belgium team that has supported and believed in her for the past 5 years- Lotto Ladies Team.

Last year Grace finished 4th in two World Cups, Drenthe (Holland) and Plouay (France) as well as winning the first stage and the overall Tour Du Limousin (France). Following these outstanding results in 2009 Grace was highly sort after by some of the World’s strongest cycling teams and she was faced with a tough decision leading into 2010. It’s was an expression of Grace’s personality and loyalty when she decided to stay with Lotto while working hard towards her ultimate goal of winning the Tour of Flanders.
In our team meeting preceding today’s race, Grace made her ambitions clear, she wanted to win solo today. Anyone who has watched and observed Grace’s progression and results would admit that today’s win was no surprise. Everyone who knows Grace would have known she was capable of winning today.

Grace had planned to attack on the Muur but her winning move happened much earlier, she rode off the front of the group on the Molenberg with 45km to go instead of on the Mur with 16km to go. When we asked Grace what we could do to assist her attempt to win Flanders she replied with “I want the race to be as hard as possible- I want a hard race”. I guess the race wasn’t tough enough so she decided she had to do something, she drove the pace hard on the Molenberg and pulled away from the group. Adrie Visser of HTC Colombia immediately jumped the gap to Grace and they worked together with equal turns until Grace dropped Adrie before the Muur with 25 km to go.

The time gap with 25km to go was only 35 seconds from Grace back to the main peleton, many would have predicted that Grace would be caught but with strong timetrial credibility Grace held off the chasing bunch by 3 seconds. Grace actually started celebrating her win with 200m to go, so you could say that she won Flanders quite comfortably in the end!
What a day!! Congratulations Grace!!

Grace would like to thank Lotto Ladies Team, Dany Schoonbaert (Team Director) and all our wonderful sponsors.
Thank You.

Another World Championship for Lotto’s Josephine Tomic!

Last year Josephine Tomic won the World Championship Omnium; 10 days ago she won another World Championship in the Women’s 3000m Team’s Pursuit, held in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Josephine was joined by Ashlee Ankudinoff and Sara Kent to form Australia’s winning team. The women rode a time of 3 minutes 21 seconds, beating the Brits by half a second.

The Great Britain team had dominated this event since its inclusion at the World Championships so to win the final against the British team made this win extremely satisfying for the Australian Trio.
Josie was very emotional after winning this world title, she only had a few months to come back from a serious injury in December, she said “I’ve worked so hard for this; it’s like a dream come true”.




Unfortunately Josie crashed during the 2010 Omnium scratch race and was unable to continue her attempt to regain her Omnium World Title.... I guess one World Title a year is enough?
Josephine will now re-join the Lotto Ladies Team and focus on the European road season starting with the Drenthe World Cup in Holland this weekend. Josie started her 2010 road season with Lotto Ladies Team by winning the Australian U23 National TT back in January.