After spending a bit of time in California I was looking forward to some nice downtime over the holidays and a bit of a taper going into the Burnaby 4 Day track race. From doing this race in the past, I knew it would be in my best interest to come into the three nights of intense Madison racing fresh and well recovered. I was lining up for the nightly Madisons with my former Garmin-Transitions team mate and sprinter extraordinaire Tyler Farrar, and though we were a bit nervous the first night since we hadn't done any Madison training together, we very quickly got into the "sling" of things.

For us roadies coming up against a solid field of trackies, we found ourselves a just a bit behind on the leg speed for the first race or two, but again by the second night our bodies managed to catch up pretty quickly and we gave the races a good go.  We won one of the Madisons and Tyler took out a thrilling victory in one of the elimination races. The training this race gave us couldn't have been any better, with both of us kicking off the season this month.  I'm sure we will be there again next year - it was a great experience overall, not to mention having the huge hometown crowds cheering us on!

Now I'm fitting in training between days of inclement weather here in British Columbia until I make the long journey down to Argentina for the Tour of San Luis next week. I'm really looking forward to getting back into the warming blanket that is the summertime sun. I am definitely a solar powered machine and the batteries need charging up.

Something that's also exciting for me is doing my first rides in the new United Healthcare team gear.  Throwing a leg over my new Boardman bike always feels like a fresh start, and I'm looking forward to getting to know more of my new team mates and seeing what we can do in the races this year. When we head over to Europe for the team's first real foray overseas we will have a lot to prove, but I have always preferred working from an underdog position. I think we can surprise a few people this year!

Thanks for reading,
Christian