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MTB Worlds Day 1 |
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Written by Andrew Freye
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Friday, 18 August 2006 |
 My journey to Rotorua, New Zealand started somewhere around 5am east coast time. I had an early flight out of Portland, Maine to catch and with the new TSA threat level at orange I wanted to make sure I left myself plenty of time at the airport. After slugging around the house for a little bit and loading my bike box into the car my mom and I were ready to head on south. Before getting to the airport we needed to make a detour to USM in Gorham to drop off my car. This way I will have my car at school when I return from my journey.
I made it to the airport just in time. Right after I arrived a summer camp filled with rich snobby brats got in line behind me. Thankfully all I had to do was listen to the high pitched energized brats behind me instead of wait for them in front of me. Some of the kids were complaining they couldn’t have a “Rock Star” energy drink. I couldn’t imagine what one of those drinks would do to a kid who was already bouncing off the walls and couldn’t stand still. No wonder why parents ship there kids off to summer camps.
Ok fast forward, I made it into Washington DC ok, flew to San Francisco. All my baggage showed up which was a plus, and found my way to the international flights without getting lost. Everything was going well. At this point I popped in a DVD and chilled in the airport to kill time before checking into my Air New Zealand flight. When the time came I made it through check in ok, through the customs place alright, and to the gate with several hours to kill. At this time other USA riders were showing up and I was able to meet the rest of the U-23 squad. Everyone is really nice and they are a great group of guys. By the time I made it onto the plane it was 12:30am east coast time. Thankfully I had already had a very long day of traveling so for the 13 hour plane ride I slept for a good 9 solid hours. Other riders had to go to the USA doctor and take Ambien or some type of sleep drug to knock them out on the plane, but not me.
I arrived in New Zealand at some crazy hour in the morning before the sun was up and on what day I am not sure. In Aukland everyone had to pick up there luggage and go through customs, no problems there. Everyone took their bikes and their luggage and put it onto a big truck where it would be driven to Rotorua while the athletes got onto this ghetto plane for a quick 30 minute flight. We arrived in Rotorua around 7 or 8 in the morning on the 19th, I left Portland Maine around 9am on the 17th. I ate breakfast, built up my bike, took in a lot of crap from everyone on my rear brake, got my rear brake fixed, ate lunch, picked up my USA clothing, and got ready for a ride. I decided to head out with the rest of the U-23 guys for a short multi hour spin. Well turns out there is this amazing network of mountain bike trails only 7k away from our hotel. And because we are mountain bikers we decided to check them out. I heard there is over 200 miles of trails in this park. The ride was amazing! The single track is smooth, fast flowing, bank turns, drops, roots, just absolute great riding. After tooling around for 90 minutes or so we tried to find a way out and we were not having much luck. We ran into some 10 or 12 year old kids and had to have them lead us out of the network of trails. Those two kids could probably rip it up faster then us in the woods.
So that’s pretty much a detailed description of what things have been like in the last two days. I haven’t been out to check out the course, but you can see it from our room. Tomorrow I will head on over and do some laps on the course and get a feel for it. From what I hear it’s a hard tail course. Thank you for everyone who helped get me this far and for all of you donated to help pay for the trip. With out your help I would not be here. I’ve been taking pictures and once I figure out how to reduce the resolution so they can fit in an email I will put them up on the web page so stay tuned!
A
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