Pezula Racing is a new Irish Continental team
Photo ©: Cameron Jennings

A fresh start: The Cameron Jennings diary

Cameron Jennings has been racing for DFL-Cyclingnews-Litespeed for the past few years. After the team folded Jennings had a tough winter, but managed to bounce back and find a racing home with Irish outfit Pezula Racing for 2008. He will be looking forward to another good year of racing.

Jennings will continue to write a diary for Cyclingnews and describe his experiences racing as a professional in all parts of the world.

• Index to all entries

South Africa, March 7, 2008

A fresh start

Hi all,

Pezula Racing is out training in South Africa
Photo ©: Cameron Jennings

Well it is on again and the racing season has begun after its disastrous start. Pedaltech/cyclingnews is no longer and it had been a busy and stressful time since receiving that e-mail, finding another team and holding onto the motivation to keep training and staying focused. Don't really feel the need to talk anymore about what happened with Pedaltech and the demise of the team. Still don't really know what actually happened. To the parties directly involved with the team's demise, may you get what you deserve. To the people who did everything they could to keep things going amidst all the turmoil, thank you very much. There, all is said that needs to be said. My hands are now washed; let's move on.

I will move on and say a big thanks to Declan, Brian and Dave O'Loughlin and PEZULA for throwing me a lifeline and giving me a go for the 2008 season. PEZULA Racing is a new Irish Continental team and is involved in major construction contracts and management in Ireland. The team is further sponsored by Aer Arann, DMC Sports and Freewheel. PEZULA is kitted out with bikes by Dolan, Mavic wheels, Spiuk helmets and glasses, Fizik to park our hoops on Portwest leisure wear and Santini clothing.

So after talking with Brian, David and Declan O'Loughlin over a week or so between races we came to terms that will see me continue to race, and race some decent races at that, throughout the year like the Milk Ras, Philly week, Tour de Beauce and possibly Qinghai Lake, to name a few. They have been gracious enough to organise a place for me to stay, food to eat and some Euro in my pocket for the year. So home for me this year is Cong, County Mayo over on the West Coast of Ireland. So far everything is going well, settling into my new bike and kit.

The mountains provided some good training
Photo ©: Cameron Jennings

First up in 2008 is the Giro del Capo in South Africa. Arrived in Cape Town on Friday night and currently spending three days here before the race and then five to six days after the race for some training. Looking forward to the two weeks and to getting to know some of my team-mates. Already know Dave and Ciaran Power a little bit through one of my best mates, Glen Chadwick (Team Type 1), and getting to know the other guys in the team like Morgan Fox, Derek Burke, Martin Irvine and some of the team staff members. Hopefully, it all goes ok. First real hit out of the year and after an interrupted start to the year I am not really sure how it will all go.

So will keep you all updated throughout the year with my new adventures with PEZULA Racing. Gerard Knapp and the editorial team at cyclingnews have been great and enabled me to keep a diary here on cyclingnews to help out PEZULA after they helped me out. So here we are.

Hope the year is treating everybody well.

Til next time we meet.

Cameron Jennings

Photography

For a thumbnail gallery of these images, click here

Images by Cameron Jennings

• It sure looks like a giant table and Table Mountain also offers some, errh, nice uphill training ground.
• The bikes of the team with their rightful owners not in sight – are they swimming?
• The Pezula team car looks sporty and will be handy during the races.
• A tired bunch rests after they went over Signal hill, signaling the end of a long day.
• Training in South Africa is nice and when you are used to Ireland you don't even have to get used to the traffic on the left hand side of the road.
• Ciarán Power is enjoying the rest at the ocean, but obviously worked really hard before that, cracking the top ten in the second stage of the Giro del Capo.
• Irishman David O'Loughlin – nicknamed Dolly – in South Africa.
• More training on another beautiful day for the Pezula team.