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We’ve been back in Europe for 3 weeks now and time has just flown by and there’s not a whole lot to tell, particularly at the bike front. In less than 24 hours of getting off the jet we’d unpacked, repacked and high tailed it up into the Alps.
I’m not a huge fan of cold weather anyway especially if it’s just cold and miserable. If it’s going to be cold lets see some snow about. It just seems to change your whole perspective; you also tend to see people change from miserable to happy which is always a good thing.
The first project was to build a Snowman which was a bunch more work then I expected, it took a good couple of hours. The worst of it was I didn’t decorate him with carrots and pine cones etc. until the next day, so by then old Frosty was as hard as a rock! We had to chizzle holes in him with a knife and lump of wood to make way for his bits.
He turned out pretty good, but little Ryan was scared of him; particularly after the sun had melted away half of his face, not really the desired effect, and slightly wasted effort.
Isabelle and me managed the whole temp change and culture shock, but the little fella took a while to work things out, particularly the snow which is pretty cold unlike the sand on the beach from last week. The whole getting to go outside procedure which takes a while with all the layers which needed to be applied, unlike a pair of boardy’s (board shorts) and a hat for the beach. We also exchanged his stroller for a sled to get around town, which was pretty coo. Then he didn’t have too much to complain about when he was speeding down the mountain on a sled with the old man swinging off the back ….
Isabelle’s parents joined us for a few days which freed up a bit of time for us to go and hit the slopes by ourselves which was pretty nice. Isabelle missed out last season because she was pregnant so she was over the moon to get back out there again.
Our time closed to an end and it wads time for us to head home then pack my bags and head off to the Middle East to Qatar for a test. This was a great opportunity for our team and a great chance to see how we stand up against some of the big guns, i.e. Team Yamaha and the Alstare Suzuki crew. After the two days of testing and only a little over 50 laps we received our very humblizing final standing which was a tad overwhelming but what we needed to get the whip out and get our shit together. I’m really confident in my new crew the biggest problem we have is we are just really late and we don’t have enough miles clocked up yet to sort out all the fundamental running systems and really get rolling.
So a s you can imagine I’m really looking forward to the first race in Qatar next week (really!) so we can at least get some more track time and start getting some runs on the board. Potentially everything will work out, it’s just that the season starts so early and we are so late.
There’s only a little over a week between Qatar race and the test we’ve just done but enough time to shoot back to Zürich especially since it’s the little fella’s first birthday coming up.
Ryan’s Birthday Day is on the e22nd of February which falls exactly on the Qatar race week-end so not only did I miss his birth last year I’ll miss his 1st birthday too. We decided to organize a little party for him before I head back to Qatar for the first race. There’s about ten kids coming and there parents of course and we’re pretty lucky we live just around the corner from a chocolate factory which will come in handy for sure.
I don’t have a hell of a lot else to report, but I’ll be giving it my all next week in Qatar and Australia the week later and maybe I’ll c ya’s in Donington….. Please bring the Sun!
Regards
Karl
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