Tuesday August 2, 2011 at 3:48pm
The first of the riders have arrived at the team hotel, along with the Team Manager, our Delegate Ted, Leo, Julian and Pete Eddy, transport from the airport for some of the riders was provided by Nev and Jude, long standing members of our support crew, thanks to them.
Leo went back to the airport to pick up the remainder of the riders all due on various flights around 11:30 Monday Night. Once in the hotel, we settled into our rooms, which are comfortable and clean, the hotel is a large one in the city centre, we have found out that we will be sharing it with our friends the Swedish team, which we are pleased about as they are always very sporting people who are always willing to help us out.
Once settled we went down to dinner where we met up with some more of our long suffering support crew, Jack and Vera, and Ted and Daf, it was great to see them and chat before eating a nice meal. After dinner it was a walk down to where the paddock is going to be, it is a large area used for holding vehicles prior to loading on ferries, first impressions are that it will make a good paddock however there still seems to be a lot of work to be done, we managed to find an area marked out with GBR assuming that is going to be our area and how we think the paddock is likely to work it seems that we have a large enough area in a fairly good place.
Only funny thing that has happened up to now that I can only report second hand is some of the Army boys (who will remain nameless) drove one of our trucks on to a ferry bound for Norway! Apparently it was like a scene from Benny Hill trying to get them off! We look forward to seeing Steve Hunt, Neil Hawker and Gaz Davies for them to explain the true story. The riders will all be meeting at 10 tomorrow morning and we will start walking tests.
The whole effort could not take place without out the ACU and our sponsors and partners, www.enduronews.com
Kriega www.kriega.com Rygor Commercials www.rygor.co.uk Lee at www.dzign-uk.com Sean at www.pro-shirts.co.uk and Andy Archer at www.powerenhancer.co.uk