Surprise, surprise!!!!

Well, if i remember rightly the last time i dropped a Blog on you guys was precisely 1 week ago, how's that for progress, usually it's about 3 months between Blogs lol. I have to admit last week was pretty manic, as you know i've been rushing about all over the place trying to get myself healthy as this years championship is rapidly approaching, i got the Eurosport punditry done last sunday then spent 3 days on the run up to the Donington park official BSB test either training or in physio trying to sort my hand out, i was fairly confident on the run up to the test that my ankles would be fine on the bike, sure, they'd ache a bit as even without any physical exercise by the evening they swell up a bit so after riding a BSB bike with the stresses and strains that puts through your body well, i wasn't expecting to feel brand new on the way back home but as i said i knew they'd be ok whilst riding, the hand though, that was a whole different ball game. Unfortunately sunday evening the hand started swelling a bit and got a bit red and angry, Monday the skin broke a bit and Monday afternoon it started leaking a bit, great i thought, an infection, that's all i bloody need!!!! I went to the doctors and got it dressed in some special dressing to draw the infection out and got put on a course of antibiotics then had literally 2 days for that lot to get to work.

If i'm perfectly honest i was absolutely desperate to ride my bike at Donington, as you can probably imagine, my preseason testing had consisted of about 50 odd laps of Almeria in Spain ending upside down in the gravel trap before i even got to try a single one of 2015 components, far from an ideal build up, however i confess that i really wasn't to sure at all how the hand would be, i rode a road bike about a week before just to see how the hand felt and thought hmmm this is gonna be tricky on a Superbike but in the grand scheme of things a week is a long time for healing, my thoughts and feelings weren't helped much during all the media stuff we had to do at Donington, obviously we have to do lots of photos with and on the bike and doing the latter and trying to shift about on the bike whilst stationary i got a few little tweeks that felt like mini electric shocks, i kept them to myself obviously but it didn't exactly fill me with confidence and a big part of me kind of hoped that the weather might take a bit of a turn for the worse as we'd already agreed as a team that if the track was damp, wet or basically anything other than dry i'd sit this test out and wait till round 1.

Something kind of strange happened though, once all my media stuff was finished, unbeknown to me the 2nd Superbike session was on, i walked in to the garage and Paul (Bird) the team owner said, "Shakey, there's 10-15 minutes left, why don't you get your helmet on and do the last 2 or 3 laps to loosen yourself up a bit" now if i'm honest i thought hmmm, not so sure but nonetheless i got my helmet on, a larger pair of gloves on and walked out to my bike in pit lane with my crew chiefs words echoing in my head, "just 2 or 3 steady laps mate, see how your hand is", with that   headed out.

As you'll know if you were at Donington it was bloody freezing and really windy, i got going down Craner curves and thought to myself i daren't cruise or the tyres will get cold and i'll get flicked off the thing so i semi got going, the hand wasn't feeling too bad but as i crossed the start finish line i noticed my lap timer on my bike wasn't working so i had no idea how fast i was going, to be honest i had a steady ride around and immediately noticed i was catching people very quickly but i wasn't pushing at all, just riding and trying to blow the cobwebs out, i ended up getting just three flying laps which was perfect, the hand didn't seem to give me too much grief so that was positive but when i pulled in the box and one of my boys was shaking his head and clapping i thought bless them, they're happy i'm back, however, it wasn't that at all, in those 2-3 steady laps i was meant to do i went P1 lol!!!!

The final session of the day was an hour and a half long, almost immediately despite the real strong winds i went lots faster than i had in the first session, we done a few exits all on the same tyres to get up to speed more and tried a small things setting wise then a bit later on we tried the first of our new 2015 parts, to say that the bike was different is a bit of an understatement but at the same time you never just bolt something on a race bike an automatically go faster, it's always a small compromise of something or another, we chipped away trying to improve and got better and better but by that point the tyres were well and truly passed their best and way over race distance so for the last 15 minutes or so we put a new pair in but stayed with the harder rear rather than firing in a zero like the majority of the field in order to get a lap time in, i did improve though and improved enough to end the session P1, with the new components we need some time to get the best out of the bike but that session was definitely a good starting point!!

After being in leathers and boots pretty much all day due to media and riding the best part of the day was taking my boots off, the ankles were a bit sore but at the same time it would appear they're fine on the bike and that's all that matters, i can't wait now for round 1, blow off some more cobwebs and get back to work, hope to see some of you guys there, take it easy, Shakey #67            

Getting you up to speed..

Hey guys and girls, i thought that whilst i'm sat on a flight i'd spend 20 mins or so bringing you up to speed on everything going on. Now, as you know from my last Blog things pre season wise haven't exactly gone to plan, in fact that's a bit of a b****y understatement, typically though i'm super positive, it's these little set backs that show you just how bad you want something and i can assure you with NO understatement whatsoever that i want more BSB titles so getting fixed and ready for round 1 at Donington park has been TOP TOP priority!!

It's funny really because spending all my time over the last two weeks either in a hyperbaric chamber or having laser and magnetic field therapy gives you lots of time to think and gather yourself, my progress recovery wise is going well, last Monday i got told by my physio that whilst my right ankle was massive, swollen and just about every colour in a rainbow and i wasn't walking so good at all that trying to walk and pushing off the ankle whilst walking would only help disperse the swelling although it'd be bloody sore, well, i had a session with him Monday afternoon and was staying up in Ipswich that night for back to back sessions the following morning so what did i do, go straight to a sports shop in the town, by some gym kit and get straight in the gym, that hour of cardio, 20 mins on the cross trainer, 20 mins on a bike and 20 minutes walking (hobbling) on the running machine on random steep hills program had me gritting my teeth muttering all sorts of swear words because of how much it was hurting but at the same time had me absolutely over the moon and so so happy to be back training that it was almost in a funny old way a bit emotional, sounds daft doesn't it but it's the truth!!

The next morning at the physio's one of the lady physio's in there was like "so what did you get up to last night, anything good?" i said good, i'm so happy, i brought some gym kit and hit the gym because i was told i needed to start to try to walk without such a limp and pushing off my ankle to help with the swelling!! she looked at me and gave me a wry smile and kind of shook her head and wondered off while the laser was doing it's thing lol!!!!! Full gas, it's the only way ;-)

Basically to bring you up to today all i've been doing is hitting the gym and pushing harder and harder, from a pain point of view on the hills fast walking things are getting much better, running's out of the question right now but on the cross trainer for instance i'm getting right back up towards maximum heart rate again so everything's going in the right direction.

I took out the Z1000 i have at home the other day, the one thing i haven't yet mentioned is my hand, that is getting better although perhaps a bit more delicate at the minute than the ankle, riding that bike was mega, it felt great to be back on a bike, but strange too, if i made my outside of my hand grip the bars it was almost like my big and index fingers went straight and vice versa, i plan to do a fair bit more riding on the road before Thursday which is the day of the official BSB test at Donington then the plan is if the track's dry and warm we'll have a go at riding and if it's damp/cold or wet i'll just do all the media stuff there and spend the extra week to 10 days getting stronger and fitter.

I really hope Donington is dry and decent to be honest, my PBM team have worked really hard over the winter with parts for our 2015 bike and i've not yet tried a single part as i crashed in Almeria boxing off our 2014 ideas, i know my team mates Stuart Easton and Hutchy both liked what they tried and said the bike was definitely improved so i can't wait to try it. 

I've been up in Glasgow since yesterday evening to open a new branch of a shop called Ride on, i went on behalf of Shoei and they really looked after me with a real nice hotel, a nice meal with Steve, Shoei's Scottish/Irish and Isle of Man sales guy and as for today at the shop well they were a great bunch and it was a real nice day weather wise, i was assured by a few guys that turned up today was their summer lol!!! there was a great turn out and a real nice bunch of guys and girls that turned up to see me so it was all good!!!

Once this flight lands i'm pretty much straight off to the hotel for Eurosport tomorrow, with the race being in Thailand it means another real early start, i think i've got to be at the studio at 4am so a big gym session tonight and an early night are the order of today, tomorrow afternoon with my family then Monday through to Wednesday full gas training and healing then Thursday (fingers crossed) get back on it!!

Right, that's me, you're all fully back up to speed so lets catch up again real soon, take it easy, Shakey#67 

That DEFINITELY wasn't in the script!!!

Well i think it's pretty fair to say that most of you will have already read about what happened here in Almeria yesterday, the final session of the day, doing a bit of a longer consistent lap time run i had a BIG off throttle highside very similar to the one i had back at Silverstone in 2013, it's funny, well, far from funny but when you have those kind of crashes that you really weren't expecting you always seem to get more hurt than when you perhaps wind it on taking liberties with no traction control and send yourself to the moon, but, anyway i had a crash and unfortunately it was a big one and even more unfortunately i've broken my left hand which resulted in an operation last night to fix it, long and the short of it is one of my knuckles disappeared down into my hand and broke it, good news is though as there's no point in dwelling on it i was operated on and with some screws and plates (a meccano set lol) it's all been put back together so i'm already on the mend.

So then to the bad news, today i had quite a lot of stuff to get through in order to box off our 2014 ideas, i got literally 95% through all of that hence the steady ish lap times then i went and flicked myself so now all my 2015 work is well and truly on the back burner.

Getting back to the operation fortunately it was performed under local anaesthetic so i didn't feel sick once it was completed but on the same token it's nearly bloody 3-30am and i cant sleep at all, i'm wide awake so god knows what medication they gave me hence the reason for sitting here in bed typing this.

The doctor has said i need a month to heal up and be right which takes me exactly to the first round but i'm planning on heading back to the UK tomorrow now to jump in a hyperbaric chamber and get the bones lasered etc so i'm hoping that'll increase healing time considerably, i've supposedly got to keep this cast on for 2-3 weeks but i'll see what my guy in the UK says and do absolutely everything i possibly can to be ready for the Donington park test in 3 weeks, fingers, well not on my left hand crossed guys and girls, take it easy, Shakey#67 

That was close!!!!!

I've got to say, i'm feeling pretty full of myself right this minute, i'm sat on a flight out to Spain for the next round of testing for this season, it's funny in a way, it literally feels like i never got the chance to go home, i guess in some ways i didn't because no sooner was i back from the last Almeria test we jumped in the car and headed down to our house in Spain for just under 2 weeks, then we got back to the UK late last Friday, i headed pretty much straight up to a Mac Tools function at Silverstone Saturday evening, back home early hours Sunday, spent the day with the kids on Sunday then today, Monday i'm back on a flight to Spain again, why though am i feeling pretty full of myself, well let's just say this trip nearly got off to a very  bad start, about 8-30am i went online to check in for my flight and whilst the website accepted my advanced passenger info etc it wouldn't let me pick a seat or actually check in, simply saying collect at check in desk, well, moving on, i went to said check in desk only to be told by the lady in orange, sorry sir, that flight's overbooked and because you didn't check in online you can't actually fly today, you'll have to be A, re routed or B get the next flight whenever that is, NOT GOOD!!!! Long story short then, after the same conversation with the customer services guy i managed to get myself on the flight despite him also being adamant i couldn't fly too, at best i could only be a reserve if somebody doesn't show, the long and the short of it was after being told "don't worry there could be up to €250 in compensation" i explained that wouldn't go very far towards the probable €15-20,000 my team would want in compensation after booking tests, paying to send trucks and staff etc, as i said, long story short i'm on the flight, it's all good!!!    

This test is going to be pretty interesting for me, whilst we don't have our "full on" 2015 bike as such there's been a lot of hard work done since the lat tests and going straight back to the track where we tried all of the prototype stuff will give us a definite answer and direction going forward, then, on an even more positive note we get to back to back the new stuff at two more tracks, Cartagena and Guadix, the latter from memory being far more like a BSB type of track even though it's probably been about 8 years or so since i was last there!!!

I'm going to try, i promise to update you guys after all three of the tests so for now i'm gonna kick back and look forward to riding tomorrow, talk to you soon, take it easy, Shakey#67