@trek: I knew that I would get Aussie references wrong I even had to double check that I could call it football

As my life began down the Cyclist path, my brother Patrick had decided to practically become my manager. He was a few years older, and had some Managerial background from Work Experience, and his studies at College. Taking me under his wing as his first client was an easy choice for us both to be fair.

It was late one night when I got the call from Patrick. He had had a call from a team, who were looking at me joining them for the 2014 season. They had seen my racing from the last two season with Genesys, and had been impressed by my level of suffering for others.

We met for coffee the next day, and he talked more about the information he had. The team in question was American ProContinental team, UnitedHealthcare. The plan was simple really. I was to jet out to California, meet with the management team, and see how I fit in with everyone.

Less than a week later, I was swapping Melbourne for Mt. Diablo in California. The initial meetings went well, and then it was time to hit the roads with some of the other riders. The Colombian climber Isaac Bolivar and veteran Lucas Euser joined me out on the road. It looked like they would be the main climbers for the team, and the bosses wanted to see how I gelled with him.

Don't get me wrong, the ride was good, but there seemed to be a strange atmosphere amongst us on the climbs. I felt like I was out of the conversation, and any attempts to get chatting was shot down and attention was brought back to the ride and focusing on training.

Flying back from the USA, I felt a little down hearted. I had hoped for more from the trip, but came back to Melbourne at square one. Luckily though, I landed to the news that not all hope was lost. It would seem that my services had been noticed, and I was hot property.

the_hoyle wrote:
@trek: It is Carnegie Caulfield on their website... https://www.carneg...ng.com.au/

@trek: I'll let you off with the name. It is just 1-1 with the aussie reference errors

I got back from the States feeling jet-lagged, and not in the best of moods following the let down that was the ride with UnitedHealthcare. Don't get me wrong, the management and the team on a whole was fantastic, I was just left disappointed by the unfriendliness of Bolivar and Euser.

Thankfully, UnitedHealthcare were not the only ones interested in me for the 2014 season. I had a few messages from Patrick regarding some Domestic Teams who wanted to talk with me, an email from Raleigh-GAC in the UK and a text message from Nathan Earle of the rumours in Europe that I was being looked at by Tinkoff-Saxo.

I met up with my brother to run over what I had in front of me. Almost instantly, the offer from Raleigh-GAC was declined. I was ideally looking to take the next step in my young cycling career, and sadly a move to the UK Domestic scene was not going to do that. Also, with an link with Tinkoff being just rumours, I was not interested in that either.

Next was to assess the Australian Domestic teams that had been in contact during my week in California. First was my current team, Huon Salmon-Genesys Wealth Advisers, who were changing to Avanti Racing for 2015. The team looked strong, adding more riders to the roster and I had the advantage of knowing the management team. However, I was unsure about whether I should look elsewhere to experience something different, plus they had stalled a lot on offering me a new deal until it felt like I was only wanted because other deals had fallen through on them.

This is where Drapac came in. They had been impressed with my work for Huon Salmon-Genesys on the domestic scene, and wanted to bring me across to bolster their domestique side of the team. They even mentioned some races where I had just pulled on a climb, and left most of their riders in the gutter. This in particular made a real impact on me, and tempted me in.

Without a moment's hesitation, I picked up the phone and called Jonathan Breekveldt. I was interested to know what they had to offer...