Day 1 – Travelling to Balikpapan, Indonesia
The day started early at 5am as the flight was at 0755hr, so we had to be at the airport at 6am
Check in took more than an hour due to the number of oversized baggage we had
A total of 13 big boxes; 10 bikes, tools and wheels
The check in lady was really calm, cool and patient with us! I was so surprised at her superb service!
So we took pictures and all and Dr Low said byebye to us
Daniel Loy, Jeff Adam, Deanna, Jiwen, Junaidi, JunRong, Calvin, Lemuel and me
Twas’ a small aircraft and so when we hit the turbulence, it felt like we were taking a roller coaster ride!! I was enjoying it (ok la, freaked out just a lil) but junrong next to me looked like he was going to cry! Hahahaha!
Thank God we arrived safely in Balikpapan airport, Indonesia, where it was raining
We loaded our boxes onto an open air truck and good thing the rain had stopped, if not the cardboard boxes would have been soaked
The Korean team and one Hong Kong rider were on the same flight as us so we had to wait for VERY LONG (I think it was like close to 1hr) for another truck to come cos the Korean team REFUSED to load their cardboard boxes onto the open air truck
And so 23 people squeezed into a small bus and the up and down, left and right, bump bump 2.5 hrs ride started to our hotel
The rollings were NEVER ENDING man! And we all went ‘uh oh’ cos we knew our course would be like that too
We finally reached the Swiss-Belhotel Borneo after passing by a river..pretty nice. This town is rich cos of its timber and mining
The hotel is like WOW. We got the executive floor, which gives us access to the executive lounge that has food almost every moment of the day and computers with internet, although we have free wifi in our rooms (highly unstable)
After unpacking our bikes, we headed to a small mall nearby for a very late lunch at 4+pm and shopped around in the supermarket
Dinner, team meeting, then it was bedtime
Day 2 – Riding the route
I had a great sleep and woke up really early
We had breakfast at 8am and then it was out to ride the course at 9am
Weaving in and out of traffic before we finally hit the actual course
UPPPPPPPPP, DOWNNNNNNNNNNN times many many
So tired after the 2+ hrs ride
There was an upslope (not part of the race course but it was on the way back to the hotel) so steep that I thought I was going to roll backwards!
The course was rather intimidating to me with the many climbs, but the more I rode, the easier it seemed
we all had race radios too, first time for me having one. Very cool man
jeff our assistant team manager together with Deanna were in the team car, feeding us nice cold water and coke, and after riding, he cleaned and fixed our bikes
Not used to having someone clean and fix my bike. Thanks Jeff!
Then it was lunch and mall, transformers in lem and dan’s room, dinner, team meeting, sleep
Pretty boring day
Day 3 – TT bike
Rode the course and climbed 2 rounds on the road bike
Me and Lem switched to the TT bikes to try out the course and dan accompanied us while the rest went back to the hotel cos their race is tomorrow
Not bad, but really tiring man…then it started to rain on our way back! All our WHITE bibs and jerseys got dirty and the stain can’t come out!!! :(
I’ve been eating so much! Pineapples and watermelons especially
Just had dinner and I’m so full!!! Think I’ll put on some more weight again man! Bad bad….
But the climbs are so tiring that I’m so hungry and tired after the ride. Plus the hot sun! The sun rises really early here, like 545am, so by the time we head out to ride at 9-11+ it’s scorching
oh oh, Alexander Vinokourov is racing!!!! and a few other astana riders, all racing for Kazakhstan team! hope to get his autograph and see him!!
watching teevee now, the woman in the show so EVIL!!!! urgh.okay back to my show.hahaha...
Pictures plus more updates will be up soon!
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