Scorcher in Kona.

Aloha !

Dropping in again to say g'day. It's 8:40pm local time and about 25 Deg C, very nice indeed. Today has been the hottest by far and if it's going to be like this on race day things could get a little fuzzy. Just got in from a bit of a stroll around and grabbed a coffee at the local - a quaint little shop called 'Hula Bean Cafe'. Not as good as Strudel's coffee, I don't think they have the wizardry of Robbie Taranto but they do have a great product to work with. Hawaii grown coffee is pretty tastie stuff but the variances in quality from shop to shop baffles me.
Since I'm confined to the odd coffee, water and Gatorade, the other adults in the party have made up for my share in the alcohol stakes. Marie, Fee and Stevo have done a great job in sniffing out happy hours and have come across some great bars with equally great scenary. They've been going pretty solidly since we arrived and their itinerary is full untill Monday next week. I'll list their findings below:

• Sat 4th - $2 Budweisers @ Pancho & Lefties. This is quite often seen in IM dvd's as one of the last bars before the finish line on Ali'i Drive, it's quite prominent with its Power Bar flags out the front. Result - Chicks: Game Over, Stevo: Just warming up !!
• Sun 5th - Kona Brewery for lunch, 6oz sample glasses all round to taste many of the different brews - all very nice as well , then onto Kona Inn for Pina Colada's for the chicks and Mai Tai's for the big fella. Result - Chicks: Game Over again, Stevo: starting to hit his stride.
• Mon 6th - Sushi El Segundo for $2 Mai Tai's. This place has some of the best views in Kona. Photo's to come. Result - Chicks: Need a bit of down time, it's starting to catch up with them, Stevo: Looking dazed but powering along.

Tomorrow night is a night off for the trio as it's the Parade of Nations. They'll be watching with the kids then running on down to the expo as it opens straight after the parade rolls through. It's a massive freebie night so the kids will no doubt be feeling like they have just come back from the Melbourne show with the amount of showbags, samples, brochures, food, drinks etc. they will get for knicks - the competition is on between them! The parade is HUGE and fair dinkum gives you tingles. It's great for myself and the fellow Aussie athletes to be all wearing the same colours (thanks IMG who gave us all a polo shirt !) and marching under the Australian flag. The crowds are so much bigger this time around so it promises to be massive.

As mentioned the crowds are getting big. I rode out the Queen K this morning for a 2.5 hr ride & rolling past the pier on my way out, man, what a crowd. This was at 6:45am and I reckon there would have been 300 people swanning around watching, with close to equal numbers in the water swimming. On my return it was easily double !! A lot of riders out on the Queen K on what was a relatively calm but stiflingly hot morning. My training is going well with my heart rate dropping to where it usually sits for any given effort so my acclimatisation has worked well. Training is really scaling down now with only a few swims, a short ride and a few runs left before this Saturday.

Observations & Ramblings!

I'll continue to do this, as you see a lot of things around here that are common, right through to the outlandishly ridiculous. so i'll keep on adding them in RANDOM point form on every post I put up.

• Haggled to get a pack of 24 Power Bar gels (Cafe Latte of course!) down to $26.40/box or $1.10 (USD) each. I don't need them of course as I am looked after by ELEMENTAL NUTRITION - www.afan.com.au who have supplied me with my nutritional needs for the race.
• The Orca skinsuit works !! Well it felt like it anyway. I won't tell you my time but I made it out to the 1.2 mile marker buoy in PB time, then negative split on the way back !! I won't tell you the time preferring not to put the moz on myself for raceday.......
• Sat next to Ben Fertic's (WTC Pres) table last night at Kona Inn. He said hi after I gave him a nod on the way out.
• I have not seen one Giant TT bike about. This is great and the word should be spread that NO-ONE rides them and they should be recalled as a fashion faux-pas, they look horrible. Personal view of course !
• Xentis wheels are HUGE. It's probably weighted unfairly at the moment as the majority of athletes getting around at the moment are European where Xentis looks to be by far the favoured wheel. This will no doubt change when the Americans armed with their Zipp wheels start arriving en-masse over the next couple of days.
• Cervelo P3C's are by far the most popular bike. Scott's are everywhere as well, TREK look to be the 3rd most favourable,next would be Kuota & Specialized then the rest. The Specialized TT bikes aren't to my flavour either. They look like the geometry has been designed around the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
• Of the rest I've seen a handful of Felt and BH's around, both fantastic looking machines.
• Argon 18 are doing a huge push, they have a massive fleet of demo bikes and you see an endless stream of them going out along the Queen K to the airport and back. They are an awesome looking machine.
• Best looking TT bike thus far would have to be the new LOOK. Saw one yesterday and the finish is unbelievable. You virtually had to line up to get a look at this dudes bike.
• Saw Cowman out on his bike, yep - they're REAL HORNS !!
• Spoke to Chris Lieto yesterday (yep, it was him I saw the other day). A nice bloke who has got stuck into road racing to improve his cycling - my type of athlete. We spoke a bit about racing and from what I could understand he started off the summer riding a grade that was similar to Oz's 'A grade' and was getting spanked. By the end of his racing season he was winning comfortably. Great talking to him about some of his races and he even asked what the Aussie road scene was like. A friendly reminder that we had more riders in this years TdF than the Yanks had him believing that it was pretty strong.
• Pete C - Thanks for the tip on Fuel Belt and Lava Java, I'll grab one of those !

If anybody is after any specific merchandise, stick up a comment and let me know.

Next post is due not long after the Undie Run. I'll have this photo bit worked out by then so there will be some photos up - Rated PG of course !! The Big Fella is participating and putting on his new Bundy Rum boxers for the event, so watch out weedy triathletes !!

Mahalo, Matty