As some of you may know we are now in the year 2014. Happy New Year! Since returning from California my life has been spent mostly indoors. With brisk -10 degree temperatures most days are spent on the basement turbo. I have developed an incredibly effective way of passing the time. I just take a look at my Garmin, get a feel for the watts and intensity I need to ride at, then huck that mean mother across the room so I can’t look at it every 5 seconds and weep about how I still have 4.5 hours left in my ride. Watching a full season of a TV show in a single run and sweating like a mellon farmer for hours is how I have been training since leaving SoCal. Hopefully in another couple weeks I will head down again.

My rough calendar is more confused than a homeless man on house arrest at the moment, races for three different teams and twice jumping the pond. I now only have a relatively clear idea of what is going to happen next year. First half of the season has some UCI races in Belgium and France, then the World Cup week (pending selection). Afterwards some more Belgian/French stuff, before coming home for the Niagara Classic and a month in Quebec ending with Nationals. My second half of the season is also pretty full of Belgian stage races (4 of them), Omloop Het Nieuwsblad U27, and other notable 1 day’ers. I am hoping my first half of the season goes well enough that I can do the Tour of Alberta or L’Avenir before the Quebec and Montreal WT races. In October I will also take to the boards (OF MILTON!) for Track Nationals.

Working out the budget is difficult. I didn’t qualify for Quest for Gold this year which is a bummer but not unexpected. I spent hours writing bursary applications but only received rejections. I did get the OHPSI grant however which will fund me 1000$ for flights, a massive help! Thanks OHPSI! With everything tallied and leaving room for potential big expenses this year I have a lot of pressure financially and I need to be smart with my money. I was also hoping to start a TFSA to get that retirement ball rolling, probably should get a career first to retire from though. I also have dropped out of school because I need to work in order to afford this attempt at being a pro and hopefully that decision pays off. I may do some tinkering online with Athabasca University to keep the brain working. I think they are going to re-assess the Quest for Gold criteria next year however and I am really hoping they do. Seems a little strange to me that 12 of the 16 people getting Quest for Gold are MTB’ers when Mountain biking’s future in the Olympics looks tenuous at best. I am trying to entrepreneur something online to make money as I am constantly travelling, if anyone has any ideas just send them over (preferably legal aha) ! A guy tried getting me into his coffee pyramid scheme on the flight home from Cali, I’m not too confident about selling instant coffee.

I’m also trying to sell some of my gear from this past season, take a look here. I also have pristine Ridley Dean ITT bike for sale.

http://www.pinkbike.com/u/benperry/

I don’t really buy into the whole resolution thing, but there is one theme for 2014, ride like the cussing wind! Chris Cross style. Just I’ll make time for sleep, 1%ers right?

Belgian Team Kit 2014: Baguet – MIBA Poorten – Indulek CT