Wow, I'm here in Sydney Australia and it is amazing. Sunny and 80 greeted us at the airport and we have been on the move since we arrived. Airport pick up was at 7:40 a.m. By the time we cleared customs and immigration we were greeted by Johnathan Vandevelde (Yep, Christian's dad) and Cameron Bates (Son of Phil Bates, the promoter) who loaded us up in a van an took us to the hotel. No rest for the celeberties. We had a press conference at 10:30 and Chris Sutton (Team Sky) was meeting at the hotel to ride to the press confernce at 10 a.m. sharp. We had 65 min to get 5 girls, checked in, bikes built, showed and to the show.
No problem, this VK team is a well oiled machine. All of us were ready in 50 min and even had a moment to relax and have a cup of coffee before we headed out.
The press conference gave us a good idea on how BIG this event is and race promoter Phil Bates. The entire week will be highlighted on Channel 9 and the last 2 stages will be a live feed. The theme that Channel 9 in going with is It's ON. And it sure is. I found out today that Phil Bates is the man around these parts. He puts on several events in and around Sydney including events that raised 8 million dollars for a pancreatic cancer ward at the local hospital. Phil put The NSW series together in 8 weeks. Vanderkitten is proud to be chosen as the American team to come over and play in this 1st ever crit series.
From Press conference to ride time, we hit the road with Chris Sutton and Ed Clancey (British National Team for a ride down the 1. I am out of practice riding on the wrong side but we sure had a great ride.
After a shower and a change we went to a great patio restaurant called La Zona cafe (1/754 The Kingsway, Gymea NSW 2227) The food was refreshing! It is so great to have fresh summer fruit in December.
We spent the rest of the evening, reading, TV or working on social networking. We are all a big Jet lagged so plan on hitting the sack early tonight and getting a good nights sleep.
Tomorrow we have a 3 hour drive through the moutain to get to Race # 1 in Bathurst. We race at 6 so I may not be able to get a post up till Thursday morning. Check Vanderkitten facebook page for photos
Team includes: Starla Teddergreen, Lisa Rachetto, Emily Kachorek, Tiffany Pezzulo, Jazzy Hurikino and Me.
0 comments:
Post a Comment