It's been a few weeks now, so where is this "going green" thing going, exactly...

The first thing I did was purchase on of these suckers, a cent-a-meter. It has a sensor that you clip onto the mains wire in your switch board which wirelessly transmits back to an LCD disply in the house. The display can tell you how many cents per hour your current electricity use is costing you in real time, which is cute, but it has two other display modes, kilograms of carbon produced per hour (for that super guilty feeling), or the one I leave it on, kilowatts/hr.

I know this is usually a cycling blog, but as I am off the bike this month I have suddenly found time, an amazing thing I don't normally have! During my time off I've gotten to thinking about some stuff I've been wanting to do for years, look into reducing the carbon foot print of our home.

This is not an entirely new concept to me, we already have low energy light bulbs and awful shower heads that I hate, and I always fly carbon neutral when it's offer; Now it's time to get a bit more serious though, so I cracked out our power bill and took a geezer...

It turns out we draw 45kWh/day on average, all year round, which is roughly double what most homes pull, ouch! So even though I thought I those low energy light bulbs would save the planet, they don't even make a dent in the carbon we produce here at chez-McAvoy.

Some of us formed a B group breakaway and made the switch to A grade at the dirt crits on Thursday night, tired of the spending too much time in congestion, we wanted a clean, clear and close race, for fun, and to drag down the quality of A grade racing to our level ;)

Starting on the back we let the real A graders tear off, lead by Mark Tupalski. Then our little group took off, with me waiting at the very back, figuring the fun would be in trying to chase people down.

Adam set a scorching pace pulling a huge gap, while Dan, Greg and I gave chase in a tight bunch, the course was pretty long at 1.2km and was taking us just shy of 3 mins per lap, so I knew this would be a long race (for a crit).

After a hard year of training and endurance racing, I was in desperate need of a no pressure, fun event in the sun with my best mates and the Urban Polaris is always just that.

Adam, Neil and I ran in an unofficial 3 man team that was there purely for laughs, and we had a ball, even finding time for a beer :P

Kylie and Anne did well; At the finish they were looking fresh as daisies and smiling like they had just arrived in a car, yet they had taken out a top 10 finish, nice work girls!

Good times :)

Here is a full write up with photos.

I went to the Kona to race Brett and prove to myself that beating him at Easter was not a fluke, sadly when mother nature added rain and mud into an already hard and closely fought race against a seriously tough opponent, the test of who was stronger became too much for me, and after only 6 hours of racing, I conceded defeat to Brett.

Defeated, wet, muddy and mentally broken, I wanted to go and find a hot shower, meal and hotel room and did something I had never done before, I got off my bike and quit the race.

Had an awesome race at the Rocky Trail MTB Grand Prix on the weekend, albeit in extreme temperatures; check out the salt on Garry's jersey from all the sweat in this photo!

Garry and I duked it out for 4 hours in the oven from hell and in the end I was lucky enough that he cramped, allowing me to catch him up on the 2nd last lap to slink into 2nd place, while the mighty Nick Menager was way out in front to take the win.

An amazing result for a punter like me, I usually come twenty-something-th place at these short distance events, and have never come in the top 20, let alone 2nd! An absence of big name riders and the extreme heat were on my side today ;)

Here is a full write up with photos.

I started out in endurance races to see if I could make the distance, it turned out I could, so I upped the ante and started to try and ride them faster. At the end of the day we were always just trying to do the best we could, alone in sea of other riders, and at the finish of the race, we would see what result we got, never really engaging with other riders.

Last year I decided if I was going to get better at this sport, I was going to have to "race the race"; watch the competition and try and keep with them and beat them. I spent the last 18 months trying to do that, but after the Scott 24hr, a very wise young man, half my age, pointed out to me something I had known for a long time, I am just not a racer.

Well it's official now, I'm paid up and registered to race in the 35-39 Age Category at the 2010 World Solo Champs, this will be my 3rd and final shot at a win in this thing...

Coming 2nd twice has done nothing but make me hungrier for it this time, even though I know the competition will be much hotter with it being held here in Australia.

To quote a good mate of mine "no stone will be left unturned in the quest to find the extra performance needed"...

After a month of rain, hail, sleet, cloud, fog, frost, wind and freezing temperatures, every damned day, finally, it looks like the worst of if it is behind us with Canberra putting on a glorious day today.

Headed out this morning for 60k on the roadies with the crew, then into the cafe for muffins and hot chocky before heading over to Stromlo for 40k on the MTB with Bob and Nick. What a way to start the weekend :) After two recovery weeks in a row and heap of time off the bike this last fortnight, it was awesome to get back out there and enjoy it!

I'm keen to start training again next week for the Kona after this little break... It's amazing how a simple change in the weather can lift your mood :)