Happy Christmas!!!!

Well guys and girls, time for a super quick check in with you all, really and truly it was simply to say that i’d like to wish you all a very happy Christmas, i hope you had a great day, got all the presents you wanted, i know i did!!!! No peace for the wicked this end though, straight back into training tomorrow, got to do something to work off the Christmas dinner Petra cooked us today, i tell you something if Carling did Christmas dinners lol…

Anyway, as i said, hope you all had a great day and lets look forward to a great 2014, talk to you all soon, enjoy the rest of your breaks, Shakey #67 

Signed, sealed, now to deliver!!!!

I'm so so happy to be typing this Blog, I'm actually starting it sat on a plane on route to the Czech Republic as this is about the first chance I've had to sit down for five minutes as I've had a bit of a hectic few days lately but more about that in a minute!!

Things work wise have been all a bit up in the air lately, I've known what I wanted to do for a long long time and fortunately for me I'm in a very fortunate position where my boss Paul Bird simply said I want you to stay riding for me but we'll work out the details once the MotoGP side of things is boxed off, you may remember a while back I said that I might have some news straight after Valencia, well, that was what it was all about, as it turns out it's taken this long for the PBM and I'm guessing Aprilia job to sort itself out but as I said I knew all along Paul had my back so it was all cool as far as I was concerned, there were the usual calls from other teams wanting me for BSB but my first priority and loyalty was to Paul and PBM so those jobs steadily got taken by others.

We'd known for a while that as a team we needed to get out to Spain to test before Christmas, in fact it was something that the team were fairly adamant about, for 2014 BSB is switching to 17 inch wheels to follow WSB and we knew that the wheels had quite an effect of the bikes handling so it was important to get out to try them and get a feel for what they did to my bike.

It's funny you know having a couple of months or whatever it's been since the last race at Brands off how initially you feel a tiny bit rusty, Cartagena isn't the type of track that you get a chance to ease yourself into either, you get about a 4 or 5 second rest up the start finish straight but the rest of the lap is either on the side of the tyre or changing direction so it's pretty physical and relentless, it'd be a great track on a 600 or something but a super bike takes a bit of wrestling around there!!! We spent a few laps getting comfortable around the track again and getting up to speed again which to be honest happened pretty damn quick then after a few exits we fired in the new 17 inch wheels and got to work on getting the bike working good with them, in some respects they were real good but in others I was surprised how similar they were to the outgoing 16.5's, I'm not going to say too much about the differences but I think I can safely say that lap records should be getting broken again next season, especially if my time by the end of the test compared to my time there after 3 days of riding earlier in the year is anything to go by and when I tell you that we lost about 45 minutes of running on the final day due to a technical problem thus not giving me the chance to go for a proper all out lap time I think things will be real good!!

After the test I only got a day or so at home before packing our bags ready to head to Czech Republic to go to see the in laws, this was supposed to be a real relaxing trip with Petra and I even planning a sneaky day and night together in Prague as we enjoyed it there so much last year, however the minute we got to the in laws Petra's sisters boyfriend said casually oh, I've entered a running race on Saturday, it's 10km's and should be pretty good, knowing I hadn't run since early March I said can anyone enter, secretly hoping he'd say no it's a club thing but he said yes for sure so before we'd even got settled in we'd been entered....

Yesterday, we woke up, kept hearing it'll be fine blah blah blah, got in the car with him and a friend, drove to the race and about 2 km from the entrance we started dropping down a big hill, unbeknown to us this was part of the course, as we approached it seemed the closer we got to the parking and starting area the steeper this hill was getting, knowing I'd not run in such a long time I was like Martin, is this some sort of joke, he was like, actually no, I was expecting it to be quite like this, anyway, to cut a long story short, we started went up and up and up, levelled off, dropped down a slight slope then I looked up in front of me and saw the leaders running up a massive flight of steps up into a big church that stood perched on top of a hill, I thought you're shitting me, first run back and this is happening, what made it worse was the fact that I knew we had to do 2 laps, it was hard enough getting up it first time round, god knows what lap 2 was going to be like!!!!

Eventually the 2nd lap passed and heading down towards the finish line I passed a group I'd been chasing for a fair while, not that it meant anything but I was chuffed, then with about 100 odd meters to go I started hearing big thudding footsteps behind me, I thought no, don't be thinking about passing me back, this one guy came past me and as we turned the last turn with about 50 meters to go we both got faster and faster, I gave it absolutely everything and literally just pipped him to the line, I thought you cheeky b word, fancy trying to pip me that close to the finish, mind you I did practically throw up crossing the line, I can honestly say hand on heart I tried lol!!!

I waited for a bit then saw Petra coming towards e end of her race, she did the 10km course too and ended up having a sprint finish with some guy who she too pipped, she actually finished 3rd in her class so I was well proud of her because when I say that was a tough race I really mean it!!

Today we're off to Prague, Petra and i stayed there for 3 days last year and loved it so we're going again, lunchtime we have a coach, we'll get to Prague around 3 then I've booked us a real nice hotel right in the middle of the city near Wenceslas square tonight then a full day of kicking back tomorrow, I'm really looking forward to it!!!

Right I'm gonna check out now, talk to you guys soon, take it easy, Shakey #67

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Quick catch up!!!

Thought I'd take this opportunity to fire you guys a quick Blog, admittedly there's not a great deal to report right now but I guess a quick catch up anyway won't do any harm!!

Since the season finale back at brands things have been fairly quiet in my little world! we had a trip to Spain for half term which was supposed to be a week off just chilling but ended up turning into a cycling mission, it was nice though in the time that I wasn't on the push bike to really just relax, enjoy my family and enjoy life in general, the fact that the last day in October was 28 degrees and we spent a couple of hours catching rays by the pool helped too lol!!!

I've been hoping to make an announcement for a bit now regarding my plans for 2014, there was a chance I'd be able to do so straight after the final MOTO GP round at Valencia but there's been a few delays, it's not a drama though, I'm fairly certain that everything needed is in place and it's only a matter of time before I can say.

Myself and a good mate of mine brought ourselves some enduro bikes recently and managed to get out on them at a place called Enduroland the other weekend, it's funny you know, we both brought the trickest enduro bikes out there, myself a 300 2 stroke and Wag a 450 4 stroke, both 6 day limited edition ones so they look properly cool, I spent 20 odd minutes running mine in on the road the night before, then we rocked up Sunday morning, unloaded these pristine brand new bikes, rode for about an hour and a half over the course of about 3 hours then loaded back into the van two bikes that looked absolutely nothing like they did when we arrived!! I had such a fun day, it was my first time back on an off road bike in about 2 years and for pretty much the whole week after I was a bit stiff and sore, I'm not sure what hurt the most though, my body form all the silly little crashes I had or my stomach from all the giggling and laughing I was doing riding watching my pals slipping, sliding and falling about all over the place, it truly was a great day and I'm pleased I brought the bike, I even went to the trouble of jet washing it afterwards to see if it was still my bike under all the mud and crap lol, it's at my local dealer now though getting a full fettle up so it should be brand new by the time I collect it from there, I can't wait to get back out on it!!

Talking of the week after that day it was an interesting one for me, I went to see two different personal trainers as I'm right on the case for 2014, I know that if I just do what I normally do I'll start the season in good shape but I want to start next year in the best shape ever so it was important to enlist some help!!, Monday morning after the enduro riding I went over to Tunbridge wells for a bit of a fitness test with one of the guys, feeling like I'd been run over by a truck I guess the results were never going to be outstanding but I was pretty happy in all fairness with the way I performed, knowing myself that I've done next to nothing since Assen because of crashes etc I guess this was the worst I was ever likely to be some improvements should come fairly quickly!!

At the end of the week I went up to Kensington to see an other guy and did a work out with him too and that's the route I'm going to follow from here on in so hopefully well definitely we'll be seeing some big gains from the word go, funnily enough I'm sat on the train to Victoria now typing this on route to another torture session lol!!!!

Another pretty cool thing that's happened recently was getting to meet HRH Prince William up at the NEC show, it ended up being a bit of a mission to get it sorted with the organisers of the show claiming they couldn't help at all but then somehow managing to get Bradley Smith an arranged meeting but hey, what goes around and all that, fortunately for me the guys at Ducati UK are good people and the boss there managed to swing it for me, made the introduction and away we went, the Prince I can tell you is a very cool guy, we chatted a bit about Ducati's, riding in general and touched on racing then he wondered off for his look around the stand so that was an absolute honour and I'd like to say a big thanks to Tim Macabee from Ducati for sorting it for me!!

Next week we're off to the Czech Repuplic for just under a week which will be really nice, I love going there because it's so relaxing for me, don't get me wrong I'll be doing a bit of running to keep on top of things but 90% of the time it's kick back and relax! I'm hoping that Petra and I can disappear up to Prague for a day and a night too, I love at city and really enjoyed the three days we had there last year.

Whilst we're over there our dog's off to boot camp, not literally, I took her the other day over to a guy in Tunbridge wells who does residential training for dogs, she's having a two week stay there and basically should come back a far more balanced, calm and obedient dog, at least that's the theory lol, not only that it works well time wise with us going away.

Right, not much further to go now so I'm going to sign off, I'll be catching up with you guys as soon as I can make an announcement which hopefully will be soon, take care guys and girls, Shakey #67