New GP sponsor, La Gazzetta Della Bici

You might of noticed the new sponsor logo on the right-hand navigation bar of the site. Well it's now official, La Gazzetta Della Bici, one of the finest cycling blogs on the planet is a sponsor of the Meo GP team!

La Gazzetta is run out of the UK by Simon Lamb and as mentioned before on the GP site, Simon's passion for cycling is second to none...

"The winner of Blog of the Year is a slam dunk. It's La Gazzetta Della Bici. No, please don't mistake it for the Italian pink newspaper. It has nothing to do with it. Rather, it's similar to what the Cycling Art Blog does, but in a heightened and more frequent way. The photos and videos are extraordinary and you'll find them there first before anywhere else. A bonus is its refined appreciation of style (what many refer to as PRO). It is pure pleasure, an often twice-daily piece of chocolate for the mind. RSS it and enjoy." Competitive Cyclist

The GP has been involved as a tester of the soon to be released range of Gazzetta massage oils and embrocations. Amazing products that prepare muscles for racing and aid recovery. The results speak for themselves with two podium finishes at the recent national club champs, ROSSO oil works brilliantly.

On behalf of the Meo GP team, welcome aboard Simon.

End of Season Wrap

There's been plenty of racing highlights this season with top performances by GP team members at local, national and international events. Some of the standout performances over the past nine months...

• Joe winning the overall at the Tour of New Caledonia

• Joe's win at the Kapiti Cycle Challenge

• National Senior Road Champs, Joe 2nd

• National Masters One Road Champs, Backy 2nd

• National Masters Two Road Champs, Lawny 2nd

• Rice Mountain Classic, Silas 3rd

• Wellington Senior Road Champs, Backy 2nd, Lawny 3rd, Silas 5th

• Masters Time Trial Champs, Backy 1st

• Capital Cycles Wellington Veterans Club 2 day tour, Backy 1st, Davis 2nd.

Racing is only part of the story as there's been a lot of laughs had out training, socialising, traveling and taking the piss out of each other.



The GP is very fortunate to have support from the following sponsors:

• Rocket Espresso Milano, manufacturers of the finest handmade domestic espresso machines in the world.

• Capital Cycles, fantastic service, backup and support from Paul, Shane, Olenka and the team.

• Ricoh, the leading global manufacturer of office automation equipment. 

• The Immigrant's Son espresso, James (head roaster) roasts the finest espresso beans in town.

Now that it's the off season, there'll be more coffee time at the end of rides and a well earned period of rest to freshen up for next season. That's all except JC, who is still in full on training mode, preparing for the Tour of China (July) and Slim who is in the early stages of his racing season in Italia.

Just found some really good photos of Meo GP riders taken by Adrian Rumney at the PNP 4 Peaks race held on Saturday 27 March. Representing the GP at this event were Silas Cullen (top), Jono Hales (middle) and Tom Finlay (bottom)...







And here's a few of Kieran (KT) in action at the Armstrong Festival of Cycling from December last year. KT finished 4th in an exciting sprint finish...






Photos courtesy of RoadCycling.co.nz

A Tale of Four Ray's

Raymond Poulidor is famous in cycling circles as the eternal second because he finished the Tour de France in second place, three times. Despite Poulidor's consistency he never wore the yellow jersey during his long and illustrious career. His tours coincided with that of Jacques Anquetil on the front end and Eddy Merckx on the back end. Two greats of the sport.

Over the past few days at the NZ National Club Road Championships, Meo GP riders stood on the second step of the podium three times. Lawny, competing in the Masters 2 race was second to Lee Johnstone on Saturday morning. Then in the afternoon Backy was second to Dave Rowlands in the Masters 1 race and today Joe was second to Gordon McCauley in the Senior Mens event.

And that's not the end of the story... a txt message came through from Slim this evening, "Ray here, 2nd, but broke both my legs off."

Great racing and a lot of fun had by all, but Ray wasn't far away from our thoughts.



Other GP riders in the results....

- Silas, finished 10th in the Senior mens race, a good result considering he raced without inner soles in his shoes after accidentally leaving them back in Wellington.

- Kirky, who now lives in Timaru finished 7th in the Masters 5 event.

- Glenno, who despite having his new Elite bottle cages installed upside down (and a bottle of Pinot the night before) finished 7th in the Masters 4 race.

- Jono, after his first season of competitive cycling finished 14th in the Masters 3 race. Great stuff.