Day 2 - Sunday

Brutally woken up at 4:30am by a hotel wake-up call. Were all confused cos we were expecting a wake-up call only at 5am. Got the team wake-up call again at 5am and trooped down for brekky. Decent brekky but couldn't stomach anything so early in the morning.. had tea and that was pretty much it. Soon learnt that that'd be the routine for me.. 3 mouthfuls of bread and a cup of tea for breakfast.

Loaded all the bags and race stuff onto the truck and the cyclework support team (Mimi, BP, Jeanette and myself - hereon in to be known as "the crew") climbed into a cab to head off to the start of the race at the EGAT hq while the guys all rode off on their bikes. Turns out we couldn't leave till all 4 cabs with all support crews were loaded up. The Philippines team ended up missing the rest of the riders so they waited alongside us to ride to the startline. Turned out to be a pretty big mistake cos our crazy taxi drivers took off at 70kmh down a busy bangkok street! Finally made it to the startline, unloaded all the race necessities into the van which BP and I were sharing with the SG team (Ah Fei, Dr Loh and WeiMin(sp?)) to follow the Open, juniors and 30-39 group.


Start of the 1st day


Our trusty vans

Kale getting ready

The brudders - Raymond and Terence

The veterans

Ah Fei in the front seat

The back of the van

The rolling start took off and it soon became apparent that our driver wasn't very cooperative. He refused to pull over into the right lane despite everyone else doing it. Not so sure how much of that was due to the fact that he didn't understand a word of english and we didn't understand a word of thai!


Kale on his way during the rolling start
After a looooong rolling start of 28km, we pulled into a gas station. Thank gawd cos I needed to pee bad.. thankfully had enough time to run into a bathroom. Was the second time that day that I had to share the women's bathroom with male riders. (the first time being in the hotel lobby when the male riders totally commandeered the women's bathroom and i had to go and look for an alternate bathroom!)

The 1st group took off, and we followed a couple of cars behind. The atmosphere was pretty hyped up with a chopper flying overhead and a whole train of cars following the peloton. We spent most of the first couple minutes in the car re-arranging ourselves and then got comfy for the 1st 50km of the race. We weren't allowed to do anything for the 1st 50km anyhow.. so we sat back to enjoy the scenery.

What we didn't expect was to see one of our riders, Terence, so soon after the start of the race!! He had stopped on the side of the road not more than 5mins after the gas station.. we rode by him and he pointed (not unhappily) at his wheel.. turns out he broke a spoke. We had a good laugh at him in the van and drove off after the rest of the peloton. BP called Mimi to help Terence out when their van passed him after the start of the veterans' race.

We took a couple of pics of the scenery (see pic below)... and then spent the rest of the 180km passing water out to riders. Witnessed a crash where Dr Loh's son, Jiwen took a fall. He was up and back riding in no time with Ah Fei's help and that was pretty much most of the drama.


The rolling start venue

The big Buddha

Cows charging alongside the road

Finally caught up with Kale's pack in the race and tailed him for a bit. To be honest, I wasn't really nervous for the earlier part of the race, cos I knew that if I didn't see Kale, it meant that he was doing well and hangin in the pack with the rest of them. The minute we caught sight of him, my heartrate picked up and I got instantly more nervous. My heart leapt into my throat when he missed a left turn and got sent straight instead.. he almost got hit by an u-turning pick-up and then had to climb uphill and chase the pack he was with originally. I found expletives subconsciously coming out of my mouth as I cursed the race officials.. I then found myself holding my breath, silently egging him on to catch up with the rest of the pack. He finally made it back and I breathed a sigh of relief.


Kale riding
Kale came across the line 3rd in his category and I met up with him after the finish line where we had some pepsi and cooled down. It was bloody hot! I hadn't sweat too much since I was riding around in the van. But the minute I got out to talk to Kale, I started dripping.. I then began to realise how difficult it must have been for the guys to ride in that heat!


At the finish line of the first day

Hung around wondering how the hell we were going to get back to the hotel since we had no van (the singapore van was full).. and whether there was going to be a prize presentation. Mimi thankfully came by with a van to pick us up but Kale decided to hang around to wait for the prize ceremony. I headed back with BP and Mimi and then sat down to have lunch. Before I could even start, Kale came back and said that they were dorking around and hadn't started the ceremony.. he sat down and before he could start eating, the van with the luggage pulled in and so we had to get up to get our stuff. Grr.

Turns out that the reason why the prize presentation took so long was cos they had sent a pack of 5 guys the wrong way so they did only 110 km as opposed to 180km. AND they had the audacity to give the pack of 5 the same time as the 1st guy who crossed the line.. so now Kale was 8th instead of 3rd. The dumbasses..

Went up to the hotel room.. and the first thing I did was to turn the damn a/c on!Not as nice as the first hotel room.. but still decent. Played the domestic wife and washed Kale's jersey and bib so that he'd be able to wear it the next day. Gave him a little rub-down cos I was in a giving mood..(it was a nice, clean rub-down so get your mind out of the gutter!!) Took a little rest and then headed down for dinner. Dinner was more of the same - tom yum soup, unidentifiable meat, etc.. and then had another team meeting in Mimi and Yusoff's room. Went out for more ice-cream at the 7-11. Found out that this was actually a nightly ritual for Yusoff and gang.


Hakim telling war stories

A blurry shot of us after the 1st day's ride in the lobby of the River Kwai Hotel

Me trying to be japanese

A shot of the brudders to prove that they survived the first day

We had decided to share the Anza van since there was only 1 guy in that van and would be less cramped than the SG van. So we got all our stuff squared away, packed everything up and then went to bed.