Until a few days ago, that is.
During my lunchtime viewing of stage 3 of the Tour Down Under this week my ears perked up when Papa Phil and Paul Sherwen finally figured out who the guy in the Cannondale kit leading the pack up Corkscrew Hill was – ‘The Canadian Michael Woods’.
Woods finished 3rd in the sprint that day and just completed the TDU in 5th place overall. This, in his first ever race on a World Tour team. A flash in the pan? One tour wonder? We’ll see, but since he’s a fellow Canadian, and I won’t be winning any races this year, I wanted to bring him to your attention.
Woods, like Hesjedal before him, has come to road racing late in life. He’s 29 and only started riding seriously 4 years ago. He was a world-class runner before coming to his senses, so he at least had the ‘lungs’ sorted out.
Woods is a climber (5’9 – 140 lbs), but he looked like he has a good turn of speed on him as well, if the sprint on Stage 3 is any indication. He’s also an aspiring blogger, who can spin a good yarn and uses even more commas than me, which I kinda like.
http://rustywoodscycling.com/blog/
P.S
The Vicious Cycle 
Good to see Canondale at the sharp end of the race. Hopefully he will have form going into the summer.
Big changes in that squad this year. Hopefully it pans out for them.
I been following him since he was on the pro con team. glad to see he is doing well.
he was a solid runner until his fracture one of his feet with what he did at the pan am games.
I just found out that he was coaching a good friend of mine. Small world, this cycling!
I see what you mean, about the commas, there might be one, or two, that could have been sacrificed but an entertaining read all the same.
I’ve never really come to grips with the comma, which probably why I’m a big fan of the ‘-‘ and ‘…’.
Hi Gerry, I just used the link to Micheal Wood’s blog a good read. Love his metric for determining day level. Rib counting. No donuts for me. It is nice to see a fellow Canadian doing well.
Hi again Gerry. I should have checked before posting. Autocorrect on iPhone and poor sentence structure. That should have read “metric for weight”. I think I was still rattled after reading an article about Sarah Palin’s command of the English language. Or lack thereof.
If you get a chance, check Sarah Palin’s speech done by Yosemite Sam. It’s a keeper!
And yeah, the rib counting is pretty extreme. But if there’s a donut in it there is definitely motivation for the average Canadian!