With only two races and two tests in the last two months I thought that I might be able to take in a little rest and relaxation, but that certainly hasn’t been the case.

The first week in July we were able to chill out for a few days at home, and then computer ‘issues’ struck! Technology is a wonderful thing when it all goes to plan and that normally is the case. Unfortunately along with technology comes complacency and in my case that means not backing up our computer and all my training files off my polar watch. I normally download my training sessions on to the computer into a polar calendar that tells me what I’ve done and where. That was until our computer crashed with a complete hard drive failure and we lost all our files, but the thing that hurt the most was losing my training files.

Just before Brno we went to Prague to have a look around and had a great meal with FPR’s own undercover food critic (Neil – that used to be his job many moons ago). It’s a great place to just relax, grab a coffee and watch the world go by. We then headed down to Brno which is quite an interesting place as it’s an old eastern block country and there are still a lot of things that differ to the west. The thing I liked most was the drive to the track which took in a drive past the old pits from the old circuit from the days when they would have been running 500 singles. Those guys were crazy1

The drive from Brno to EuroSpeedway for our two day test was fairly uneventful, but incredibly hot. Unfortunately the weather didn’t continue into the test which we had to cut short due to heavy rain. I tried to ride in the wet but it was absolutely impossible as the tyres weren’t really working - I did two laps and decided to stop. I know a few other guys kept going but they all crashed so I was glad of my decision. In the dry however we made some more progress with the handling of the FP1 and worked with the fuelling to smooth the way the bike comes on the power.

It was then back home to Italy for a week of sorting out a few things in the apartment and a bit of trials riding needless to say!

We flew over to the UK on the Monday before Brands Hatch, which started well with an upgrade to business class at Malpensa Milan airport. We were then met by a chauffer who held my name up on a plaque and took me and Sandra to the Aston Martin factory in Gaydon - which is lovely English town – in order to pick up our car for the week. My personal sponsor Bilia Volvo, the number one Volvo dealer in Australia, is also an Aston Martin dealer. We met the main guys there and had a look at the production line where everything is hand built - it really was incredibly interesting to see. We then went outside where my courtesy car for the week was waiting – a convertible DB9!!!!!!!

From there it was back down the M40 to Silverstone for a test the following day with the British Superbike guys. It was quite funny arriving in the paddock in the Aston as it caused quite a few of the British riders to comment that I was getting paid too much. I chuckled to myself when I thought about how many phone calls FPR would be getting the following day from prospective riders! That evening, some of the boys (from the team) were looking at the Aston so I took a few of them out for a spin along the dual carriageway!

The test went well with the general performance of the bike and also the changes we made from the previous Lausitzring test. I lapped faster than I did at the Silverstone race meeting which confirmed we are heading in the right direction with all chassis changes. It was also interesting to ride on the track with the British lads and just see how our control tyre compared to the Dunlops they use.

So from there it was then back in the car to head down to Brands Hatch for the race. We stayed at the Thistle hotel which is walking distance to the circuit, but which meant two things: first I didn’t get to drive the Aston over the week and second, we didn’t get a hot shower all week either! After complaining since arriving on the Tuesday night the manager finally came to my room on Saturday evening and spent half an hour running the shower before he finally worked out that the only water coming through was cold. He offered me a bottle of wine for the inconvenience! Maybe he thought that once I had skulled the bottle that I wouldn’t notice the water being cold. After five days of cold showers they finally gave me the key to another room to use the shower for Sunday night and Monday morning. It was great to finally have a nice hot shower on Sunday night. But on Monday morning when I entered the room there was a guy sleeping in there. He got a shock and so did I!

Things didn’t go to plan at Brands. After being on pole last year I was hoping to get some good results. I knew we were going to struggle when I back-to-backed the race tyre from last year to a new Pirelli rear. The race tyre from last year was a little slippery compared to the new one that gave good grip for 20 laps. Our bike works well at the moment with not a lot of grip because we can get our power to the ground better than the other guys.

In race one I caught Abe and he held me up which allowed the group behind to catch us up. But when we got to the straight all I could do was wait for the other guys to pass me, then him, and continue on. I had tried a move early on just as the group had caught up but had a moment and just about broke my foot peg off when my foot came off the peg and smacked into the back of my leg. Race two saw a better start and I had some clear road to put my head down. I was doing good consistent laps when Abe either tried to do a crazy pass or made a mistake (his chief mechanic said he made a mistake!) Anyway the result was the same as he took us both out of the race. I was pretty annoyed because we have to work really hard to get points this year and it would have at least been another points scoring race.

After Brands we headed down to Wimborne in Dorset to spend a little time with Sandi's Uncle and Aunt. It was quite relaxing and the girls went off doing horsey type things while I went with Sandi’s Uncle, who felt as though he should make sure that I had a pint at every pub in and around the Winborne area. We really enjoyed our time there but I seemed to have a head ache constantly for the three days we were there. I'm sure it must have been a cold!

Leaving the UK is normally a pretty straight forward affair unless you happen to fly BA on the day they decide to strike. Twice now we have been caught out, just left wondering around Heathrow with thousands of people in the same predicament. The only good thing with it being our second time that we were caught in BA strike action is that once our flight had been cancelled and they were telling everyone to leave the terminal, we ran straight across to the Alitalia terminal and bought the last two tickets back to Milan Linate the same night. They finally got our luggage back to us two weeks later which I must say is an improvement from last time when it took nearly four weeks!

When we got back to our apartment we decided to head off on our cycling adventure. Most people who train for these things plan their stops and so forth but we just looked at a map of Switzerland, saw a lake that looked pretty big and took off. We cycled around Lake Marjorie and Lugano on the south side of the Swiss Alps. We did about 70 miles a day and stayed in hotels at night. I really enjoyed it and we had perfect weather as well.

We were in a bit of a hurry to get back on the Friday as I had to prepare my trials bike for the weekend as I’d decided to head up to the French border of Switzerland with a bunch of my mates for the weekend to do a trial. The trial was 15 sections over a 15km loop which we had to do three laps of. Our start time was 09:49 and I rode around with three of my mates - we just managed to finish on time seven hours later. It was a great weekend except it rained harder than I have ever seen for the whole time we were there. As it turned out I think we were lucky to get back onto the south side of the Alps when we did on Sunday night due to all the flooding.

There are only a few days now before we head off to Assen which is great because I am keen to get back on the bike and get back into action

Ciao

Steve