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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