Well, it has certainly been a busy few days.

Eddie and his team are on a round the world trip at the moment. This week they had been invited to present at the ‘Identifying and Developing Australia’s Next Generation of Cyclists’ Conference in Adelaide. This inaugural conference, organsied by the National Talent Identification and Development Program from Cycling Australia attracted delegates from throughout the country from the state’s cycling, triathlon, sports academy and sport institute organisations, with the speakers including Simon Jones the former head men’s track coach for the British team. There have been a few interesting Tweets and a blog post from Come Cycling with Me. 
Currently topping the 4k individual pursuit Wattbike Ranking is Rhys Gillett a young cyclist from Ballarat within one of the talent programs and overseen by Tammie Ebert, the Senior Coordinator for Cycling Talent ID in Australia. Awareness of Rhys’ utilisation of the Wattbike in his training encouraged Tammie to invite us to present.

Intrigued by the product and the integration of it within British Cycling at all levels, Eddie’s presentation was enthuisiastically received. From our part we were hugely impressed at the healthy cross-pollination of ideas between both cycling and triathlon and the desire amongst all delgates to continue to innovate in order to stay ahead of the curve and the rest of the world. It looks as though the Wattbike will soon become an integral part of Australia’s Talent ID programme as well as an important mechanism to engage young people and drive membership within Cycling Australia. Numerous orders placed and many new friends made Eddie’s (or Fast Eddie as he has come to be known) trip enjoyable and well worth while. Next stop is US Cycling in Colorado Springs on Monday.

Back in the UK I was back at the Brawn GPs wind tunnel on Tuesday seeing the magic happen. I spoke at length with a couple of engineers and finally understand what a rear diffuser actually is, which while completely unrelated to cycling is interesting when they talk about it so much during the coverage of the Grand Prix. Simon Smart and his team from Drag2Zero where testing a number of athletes in the windtunnel. I was there to help them with some physiological data relating to how the new position impacts on their ability to produce the power required to ride fast. I met with Ed Waterston, Marketing Manager of Scott in the UK and tested him, if he agrees I will post some data and pictures here shortly.

Finally, to and a rather bitty post, I spoke with James Cracknell yesterday evening. He has enjoyed using the Wattbike, and some of that competitive flare that made him so good at rowing is back, especially when he realised that one of the Danish rowers, Soren Madsen is only 700 metres behind him. James will be a guest blogger over the next few months, so look out for his posts.