 Okay, so once again, I'm set up doing a bit of bike chaser promotional activity. We're doing some stuff in February, it's the last day today. And I thought while I'm set up here, got to plant again, got the bike, got the lighting here, I would use the opportunity to, I feel like last week when I gave an update on my road bike reviews, it's an opportunity maybe to get on a bit of a roll. And in this video, I want to talk about a series that I started almost when I first started this YouTube channel about seven months ago, I think it was, my goal to win in a great criteria. And then what I'm going to do next week is after I published the Specialized Venge versus the chapter two head to head review earlier next week, the following video will be a full channel update. Okay, what am I thinking, whether I want to take the channel, et cetera. Before we get into my goal to win a grade and the series that I created on this channel, let's reflect just quickly on that video I did last week where I talked about what's happened to my road bike reviews. My, when I was editing that video, when I was creating, when I published it, my expected response was a lot different to what I got. Now, I go back and look at that video now and I understand why a lot of people reached out to me with almost concern about, you know, my wellbeing. That wasn't what I was expecting or hopeful for, but I now looking at myself talk and talking about all these red emotions. I understand why people reached out and expressed some concern. So I just wanted to say thank you for that but also let you know that I'm really good. Yes, I had a bit of a stressful moment in my life but I always look at the brighter side. I've got all my limbs. I can breathe properly. I'm not staring down the barrel of any debilitating disease. You know, I'm pretty fortunate here. So, you know, I'm feeling pretty good. And also my wounds, they're healing up quite nicely. They're turning into nice little strawberries there. As you can see, my leg, which was sort of freaked me out. This part here got really infected and it puffed out when I was already on antibiotics. There's a couple of days there where I sort of thought I had, you know, 40% of the diseases that are on Google. I thought I had them all. But that's all good now, healing up really nicely. So I'm feeling really good and I'm back out riding, which is great. But thank you to everyone for your concern. Now, my goal to win an A grade criteria. The series that I started about seven months ago on this channel. I want to talk about the series itself. I think it's been a poorly run series by me and I'll explain why shortly. But before I do that, I want to talk about the goal itself, the lessons that I've learned and also, you know, the big thing that came out of it for me. So my goal to win an A grade criterion, it's still there. I still want to try and win an A grade criterion, but look, the scene up here is a lot different to what it is in Melbourne. Basically, you know, the illustrious nature of Melbourne's criterion, seeing Glenvale, Sand Downs and Kilda. If you win there, it's kind of like hats off. That's an unbelievable job. I'm sure if you win an A grade criterion here, it's still hats off, but not to the same degree. I hopefully get what I'm saying here. So I guess that's impacted on, okay, where do I really want to focus my energy for my next goal? Because really, as I've gotten older, I've got kids and full-time jobs and all this kind of stuff. I've probably got a four to five month effort in me each year. And then I sort of need to back it off otherwise you turn into a grumpy prick for 12 months because you're over training and you've got too much stuff going on in your life. So I'm still going to race. I'm still going to do some videos and share them with you on this channel, but it's not going to be a primary focus. And as a result, the series, which is kind of already sort of fizzled out anyway, is going to officially end. So one of the big lessons that came out of the goal to win an A-grade criterion was timing. I think I really stuffed up the timing of trying to win an A-grade criterion. My training preparation at the time and at the time of setting my goal, I didn't have too much external happening in my life. But then when I was trying to race and continue to train during the week and really focus on getting up for an A-grade crit, this is not an excuse, this is just a lesson that I've learned. I had a lot of stuff going on in my personal life because we were moving into state. To be able to put your mental energy and focus into a sporting goal like winning an A-grade criterion, it becomes quite tough. And I stressed myself out. I made myself a little bit anxious actually because I also told people on the channel, this was my goal, I promoted it on social media and all this kind of stuff. So I think the reflections are, setting a goal in the future, don't think about what's happening at that point in time of setting the goal. Think about, okay, when you're gonna be trying to be at your best, training hard, racing hard, what external could be happening in your life? Okay, so that was a lesson. Now, the positives are that when I got to A-grade maybe three or four years ago, I was like, I'm never gonna win one of these. These guys are like unbelievable. And that was my attitude. So I would finish races and that would be about it. And then when I stopped racing with inform, I would just try and hang on quite often get dropped. And that was about it. It wasn't until I said, all right, I'm gonna put my mental energy into, I wanna win a race. So I obviously trained specific for it, but my attitude when I rocked up to races was, I wanna try and win one of these things. And as a result, my performance, like I was in the mix, I raced eight times in the end and out of the eight times, there was two occasions I put myself in a position to win. Now I didn't win either time and I think reflecting on when I was in B-grade and C-grade and D-grade, I had to stuff up a few times in winning positions to make the right decision in a winning position in the future to get on a podium or get up for a win. That should give you confidence that you can win a bike race. You just need to get smarter about what you do. You might need to refine certain things, whether it be your fitness, your sprint, or your bike handling skills, whatever it may be. So that was, I've come out of that going, just how good could I maybe get if I really focused on something? And that could add to a good type of series in the future on this channel. Now, the best thing that really came out of this whole thing for me was, you know, a bit of a personal development about mental health, mental health awareness. So when I promoted the goal on this channel and on social media, David Rigney from the Knights of Suburbia, they're sort of a team or more of a group of individuals that want to promote and talk about mental health. They're not just in Melbourne anymore, they're across Australia. And he reached out to me and said, have you thought about tying your goal into a charity, a charitable cause like the Love Me Love You Foundation, who they represent? And I said, no, I hadn't, but it's a great idea. So that's what I did. And we tried to actually get a fundraiser on board for, you know, my goal to win an A-grade Criterium. I couldn't get one in the end. But what ended up happening is as I couldn't find a partner to help with this, I said, look, if I get up for a win, we'll donate the winnings and also the Nichols family will top it up to make it $500 to the Love Me Love You Foundation who are all about, you know, their motto is never alone and promoting and talking about mental health awareness. So yesterday I reached out to Lance, who's the CEO of that organization. And there's no winnings I can donate because I didn't win an A-grade Criterium, but the Nichols family has donated $500 to that organization, to the Love Me Love You Foundation. So I'm gonna link to them below if anyone else would like to jump on board and support them. But what it taught me was, you know, Australia's got a small population of under 25 million people. And nine people in Australia commit suicide every single day. Seven of them are men, which is very scary. And then, well, I mean, it's scary no matter what way you look at the numbers, but seven of them are men. And 30 people, other people attempt to take their own life. So clearly it's a massive issue. And I know what the Knights of Suburbia do and Love Me Love You Foundation. They're educating people and, you know, the Knights of Suburbia kit is a, it's a bit of a, it's a tool to spark conversation. In fact, one of my subscribers, Pete Luttrell recently visited Noosa and we went out for a ride. He said after that video that I watched, I reached out to the Knights of Suburbia, bought the kit, so he now wears it. And he says when he's riding in his hometown that, you know, people come up to him and ask him about the kit and it sparks a conversation about mental health. You know, having a conversation, talking about it with people because you never know, you know, who might be suffering and what impact you can have. Now the last thing is the series itself. Now, I thought it was a poor series because really in a series, you want to probably see a video at least once, maybe twice a week, worst case scenario, about, okay, what's going on? What is Cam doing for his training? What is, what does Cam learn from that last criteria that he did? You know, what's happening in the background? I talked about this stress that I was, and anxiety that I was feeling, you know, during that period because I was moving the house, you know, I should be sharing that kind of stuff. That's a proper series so you really understand what's going on behind the scenes. I didn't do that. I ended up more, okay, you know, let's capture the moment at St Kilda Cycling Club, first Crip Back. Let's capture the moment at Glenvale. Probably the best piece of, you know, content that came out of it has gone to heaven. Conversation, Tommy Nankervis and I had about a Glenvale Criterium that I did and he critiqued my Criterium. That's the kind of content that you should expect in a series and being reasonably new to YouTube at the time and now having more maturity, I can reflect and go, okay, there's a lesson learned there. Next time I run a series, you know, it needs to be more in depth and needs to be more behind the scenes. So there will be another series on this channel at some point in time and I want to align it to a goal. I want it to be sustainable so I don't absolutely cook myself or burn myself out. But when I do run the series, I want to do it properly. So that's pretty much it. I'm really looking forward to sitting down in front of the camera tomorrow and delivering my spill. Chapter two, rare A versus a specialized Venge. It's taken me two full days to nail the script but I think it's gonna be pretty good and I hope to catch you in that video.