Hi All

I thought I would let you all know our race program up until about mid September. I leave tomorrow for the Tour of Denmark which is run over 5 days and Cam is already at the Tour of Poland which started a couple of days ago.

So our race program is:

1st – 7th August – Tour of Poland (Cameron)

4th – 8th August – Tour of Denmark (Travis)

17th – 24th August – Eneco Tour (Travis and Cameron)

11th – 18th September – Tour of Britain

After the Tour of Britain is yet to be confirmed for the both of us as there is still selections for the Worlds and Commonwealth Games to be made so once these teams are announced we will have a better idea of our race program after Britian.

Hopefully you will see my name up the top in Denmark this week!

Trav

Hi Everyone

My apologies for not having written for a while. I would love to give an excuse but really I have just been too lazy during racing and between races to write a post. So once again I am sorry.

Well my first half of the season has gone a lot better than I could have anticipated. I had initially thought if I could get some good experience and get stronger through this year that would be great. I am very pleased with how I have performed and have managed to get some good results. Specifically they are:

2nd – Bayern Rundfahrt Stage 6

4th – Bayern Rundfahrt Stage 5

5th – GP Nobilli (1.1 in Italy)

In getting these results I have realised that maybe I can set my goals and standards a bit higher than just gaining experience. In all honesty these are not ProTour races but were HC categorised races which have approximately 6 – 8 ProTour teams, a few Pro Continental teams and a few Continental teams. So still by no means easy! For my first year Pro it has still been a more successful first half of the season even if they are not ProTour races.

As for the experience side of things it has been really awesome getting to race alongside and learn from some great guys and riders I can look up to. Two particular moments which I really enjoyed and got a lot from was being Christian Vande Velde’s personal domestique on the last day of the Tour of Romandie because it was only Christian and I over the top of the first Cat 1 climb (you may remember me writing about this). This was something, that for a Neo – Pro, is pretty special!

The other race was Delta Tour in Holland as myself and the team managed to work and help Tyler Farrar out to win overall in the tour. One of the great things with this was even though for Tyler it may have been a smaller win than he is used to, he still was very thankful and grateful for all the help everyone in the team did for him and he seemed as happy as if he had won a stage of a ‘grandy’.

I now have a couple more days training and then I have a week off the bike to relax. I am looking forward to this a lot as I am off to Italy on Monday to see my girlfriend, Genna, and her family. We both then come back to my place in Girona and will be hitting up the beach, going to Barcelona for the weekend and keeping my mind off the bike! Trust me this has been a long time coming! I have not seen Gen for about 4 months and have been looking forward to seeing her again for a long time. It is one of the things as a Pro Cyclist that unfortunately we have to sacrafice seeing and spending time with our girlfriends, friend’s and family.

My next race is Tour of Brixia from the 21st – 25th of June. Get to climb some nice mountains!

Until then!

Trav

Well…Stage 2 was about as exciting as Stage 1. Not very.

It was a very fast and dangerous start with a lot of attacks. The break got away today after about 30km of racing and the bunch came to its usual nature stop and relaxing. We pretty much rolled around with the break not getting any more than 3 minutes. So the break were basically playing the ‘cat and mouse’ game with the peleton.

The major climb for the day was a 1.5km very steep climb with 30km to go. This split the peleton up a bit but there was some good decent after and then on to the finishing circuits which we had to complete 2 laps. I got over the climb in ok position and then once it started to come back I had some decent legs so I was going with a few moves.

However Team HTC – Columbia had the bunch in control getting ready to set up their sprinter and my mate Leigh Howard. Our team do not have a ‘true’ sprinter here, however, Martijn Maaskant is pretty handy in the sprint so we were trying to get him set up for the finish. While I was trying to find Martijn I managed to get right on the wheel of Leigh Howard with 1km to go but then it got very squeezy and I lost it. Dam! Martijn managed to run a creditable 4th for Garmin – Transitions and myself in the top 25. So not too bad a day. My legs felt better again today so hoping they just keep getting better! 180km Stage tomorrow is supposed to be relatively hard so lets see how I go!

Cheers

Trav

Hi Everyone

I am now currently at my second tour for the year. It is Bayern Rundfahrt which is a 5 day 2.HC tour in Germany. I have been looking forward to this tour a lot as I have been training for the past 3 and a half weeks after the Tour of Romandie.

Today’s stage was 190km over fairly flat terrain. The break went away after only about 20km, so the next 140km was literally just rolling along. The race didnt start to get hard until about 35km to go when we went up a pretty gradual 8 – 10km climb. It was surprisingly hard for a climb that wasn’t very steep. There were a few attacks but over all not too bad.

We finished with 2 laps of a short course and it was a bit ridiculous. It had a lot of crazy downhill into sharp corners and a cobbled finish. Nevertheless I managed to finish I think in the top 30 or so, so not such a bad day.

Tomorrows stage is 200km and a little bit hillier so looking forward to it!

Until then!

Trav

Hi Everybody

Well I have recovered nicely after the Tour of Romandie and am now starting to do some good, solid training in preparation for my next tour. I told you all that I would be doing Tour de Picardie in the middle of this month but now Garmin Transitions did not get a start in this race so I will be training basically by myself for the next 3 weeks leading into Bayern Rundfahrt at the end of the month. I do not mind this too much as I am very motivated and hope to put in some good rides there.

As you know (from reading his daily blogs as I hope you all are!) Cameron is currently racing in the Giro d’Italia and in doing so has not been very considerate to my feelings as now I have a lot of alone time in my apartment for the next 3 – 4 weeks! I guess I can forgive him as its a pretty big race! So I have been getting stuck into a lot of movies, courtesy of my lovely girlfriend Genna, as she bought me a portable hard drive and filled it up with a heap of movies!

On the training side of things I thought I would tell you about my ride today. I managed to get in 5.5hrs and included going up the famous ‘Rocacorba’ climb to familiarise myself with it as I have a couple of days where I have to do threshold efforts up the climb. The reason the climb is famous is because a lot of guys test themselves on this climb to see how their form is. The climb is 13km long and has some pretty solid sections in it. I think the average for the climb is 8% so it is pretty tough.

So anyway I thought I would give you a little insight to how my training and life has been post Romandie! I might get back to my movies and I will be sure to write again soon.

Trav

G’day everyone

Today’s last stage will be one that I will never forget. The stage was only 120km long but over very tough terrain. The day started at the bottom of a 14km Cat 1 climb. Literally at the bottom. 700 meters of neutral and then ‘WAM!’

I started to suffer only about 5km up the climb but I dug really hard and managed to get to the top of the climb in about the top 30 guys, including my team mate and team captain Christian Vande Velde. It was rather humorous (well not so much for me) when I went up to Christian just near the summit and offered my rain jacket, puffing and panting and with a heart rate of about 180bpm+ and the reply I got was “Na man im cool. Thanks buddy”. Not an expression on his face. I thought for a minute that we must be on a sunny, flat beach ride and going to stop for coffee soon. So yeah I was hurting a ‘little’ bit more than him obviously!

The decent was crazy as the bunch could not see much more than 10 – 20 meters in front of them due to the fog. It was crazy. The next Cat 1 climb started directly at the bottom of the decent and went for about 5 – 6km. The group went pretty cruisy over it and I had recovered well so I was riding near the front of the group. Down the next decent of 9km and then we had 40km of flat before the last climb of the day. As it was just Christian and I, I had domestique duties for the day. So I was doing numerous car runs for bidons and rain jackets most of the day.

Coming into the bottom of the last climb it was pretty important to be right near the front and as I knew I would probably get dropped up this 6km ‘wall’ I did my best ti get Christian into the front leading into it. I managed to place him very close to the front and just behind Valverde and then my job was done. I pretty much went backwards as soon as I hit it.

I rode in with a group of 5 guys at 13 minutes down but I was really pleased with my ride and it is a good sign that my best day was my last day. Romandie was my first tour for the year and my first since September last year so in my mind I think it is promising for future months.

My next tour is Tour de Picardie in France on the 14th – 16th of May which is a flattish, windy tour. I will try to do the same again and write daily reports so keep in touch on my website and I hope you enjoyed reading my experiences for my first Professional Tour of the year!

Until next time.

Trav

Hurting in Stage 5 of Romandie

Wet and cold days on the bike are the times when you sometimes wish you were either doing another sport, working in an office or kicking back in front of the television sipping a cup of hot chocolate. I would choose the hot chocolate personally!

So as you have probably guessed today’s stage was wet and cold. The day was only 157km long so it wasn’t all too grim. A few of us guys were told that we can try to make the break for the day to get ourselves a ‘head start’ up the long category 1 climb. So I was pretty keen to get the Aussie jersey out the front and in the break away. I was like a typically excited, young junior again and was going ballistic trying to get into the break away. I forgot for that first hour that I was riding for Garmin Transitions which are a Professional team and that it is not real smart to do 50 attacks to get into the break, but better do a few and make sure it counts. Well guess what happened? I missed the break of course. So it was another day floating around in the bunch.

The peloton kindly went very calm up the climb but not so kindly smashed it on the decent and flat which proceeded it. I was going alright but got hooped up the last categorised climb for the day. So unfortunately it was another day in groupetto but not such a bad thing as tomorrow’s stage is very tough.

Weather forcast for rain and cold again. So I will be thinking of my hot chocolate climbing and descending the three Cat 1 climbs in store for me.

Trav

Well..

What can I say? Maybe that the time trial course today was possibly the hardest time trial course in the world! Majority of the course was uphill and into either a head wind or cross head wind. So not real nice! I planned to go fairly hard today but also not go out there thinking unrealistically that I was in contention for a good placing and go out too hard. I rode within my limits today but I must admit I was a little bit tired. The legs didn’t have much drive in them so I had to just look after myself and ride the best I could.

A big congrats must go out to fellow Aussie Richie Porte who won his first pro race. And in style! Richie put away stars such as Alejandro Valverde and Vladamir Karpets by nearly 30 seconds! Awesome ride Richie and I am sure there will be bigger things to come from him.

Tomorrow’s forcast. Rain. Cold. Miserable. Should be fun!

Until then!

Trav

Tour of Romandie Stage 3

Hey Fans

Well once again the weather god’s where kind to the peloton for the 2nd stage from Fribourg – Fribourg.

I pulled up surprisingly well from yesterday’s stage. I thought that I could be in for a very rough day as I went pretty deep yesterday. The break for the day went away after approximately 15 – 20km, so nice and early once again. Liquigas controlled the head of affairs for 90% of the race as they had the young teenage sensation, Peter Sagan, in the yellow jersey. The team’s job for the day was to look after Robbie Hunter and Michel Kreder if it were to come to a sprint and also Christian Vande Velde who is looking like our man for the GC later in the Tour. I did a bidon run early for the guys which was pretty sweet (which I must thank Christian for the advice on bidon runs before the stage start!). My first bidon run for the team but Im sure there will be a lot more to come!

We passed the finish banner in Fribourg after 100km and we had two laps of a 35km circuit. There was a Category 1 cobbled climb just after the finish line which was total chaos. It was a downhill run into the finish, doing 60km/h+, into a 90 degree right hand turn, followed by a very twisty decent and then hitting an 800 meter, Category 1, cobbled wall! I rode really good position and I was over the top the first time in about the top 30 or 40 guys. I felt like I had good legs until I hit it the 2nd time. The bunch absolutely drilled it into the finish the 2nd time and it was very dangerous. I still managed to stay pretty close to the front but used up a bit too much energy in doing so. By the top of the climb I was just off the back of the group and I spent the next 10 – 15km chasing with about 6 or 7 guys but we did not make contact. I kind of knew in the back of my mind that we were not going to get back on to the bunch but I would like to use Romandie to try to get my road legs back so it is all good training! However it looked like a day to roll in with ‘groupetto’ and save the legs a bit for tomorrows 23km time trial.

I have added some more racing pictures. My favorite personally is when I am just behind Christian Vande Velde up the cobbled climb!

Trav

Christian Vande Velde and myself up the Category 1 cobbled climb

Travis Meyer - Tour of Romandie, stage 2

Hi all

Today’s stage was set under nice blue skies and a fairly warm day. I was set for 175km in the saddle and was prepared to tackle the tough course set in store. I was feeling pretty good today but I still had to dig deap over the categorised climbs. I have not had the chance to do a huge amount of hill training so I knew I would have to dig deep to stay with the front of the race. I managed to stay near the front and run inside the top 40 with my team mates Robbie Hunter and Michel Kreder coming 6th and 7th respectively. I tried to help the team out as much as I could today but it was always going to be a tough ask for my first racing back as I was more occupied with just holding the wheel infront of me!

Tomorrows stage is from Fribourg – Fribourg covering a total of 171.8km. Hopefully the legs pull up ok for tomorrow and I can go well.

Until then!

Trav