Dad picked me up, I threw a few items of clothes out of my bags... he then drove me to cheltenham where Rob lives, when I got there we transferred all my shit into his van - he said I didn't have much stuff..... I now panicked some more, regretting getting rid of the spare clothes. From Rob's we drove to collect Ryan, Rob's sidekick.
Bearing in mind I was sandwiched between two men I'd never met before in a black rapist van, I was feeling pretty comfortable. It was made easier by the fact that they were fast becoming two of the funniest fuckers I'd met in a long time. The drive down was fairly uneventful, banter was building and the awkwardness was lessening. Rob's Tom Tom was a piece of shit and took us on an ass about face route to get there....luckily Rob had done the event before "I recognise this now... it's just on the right here....."
20 mins later..... "yeah it's just on the right...."
and so on for another 20 minutes.
Eventually it was just on the right as he said and we drove up onto the campsite in Builth Wells, there were rows of neatly erected tents, large inflatable tent, various gazebos and the "Merida bus" - a swanky converted horsebox with an array of Gore Bike Wear products.
It was around 4.30 when we got there, and had an hour and a half before dinner in order to register and find our bearings, and in my case pitch my tent - I'd gone for the pikey "Silver" package which meant I took a tent and put it up, everyone on the Gold package got a pop up tent which was put up and taken to the next campsite for them (they were also designed for midgets)
We went to register, collect our holdalls (which were enormous!! and once more I regretted not bringing more stuff) I put up my tent near where Rob and Ryan's were and we wandered about a bit. They knew Alex from Gore and introduced me, there was a handsome man selling cheap once worn windstopper jackets - I had a browse and decided that I should probably get one, since my shitty lidl one pretty much filled my hydration pack. So I decided to later on get one, after being mildly insulted by the handsome man "You're riding!!? The WHOLE week!? I assumed you were supporting" So OK, I don't come across a fit cycling type, but I had a smart jacket for 30 notes.
We sat down to dinner at 6 and everyone was being really friendly introducing themselves, lots of them were on a return visit to TransWales and the stories of previous years sounded good (except the year everyone got the shits... or the year it rained for the whole week)
Over dinner the guys took the piss out of my tent - that I'd be paying someone to put it up for me by the middle of the week. We were getting more and more comfortable with each other, so the piss taking was pretty much constant, this is fine with me, it's where I am at my best.
After dinner we went to chat with the Gore guys in the Merida Bus and had a beer, and they talked about bike components whilst I sat looking vapid, they were all really lovely guys, it's strange as I've never been in this environment before and the people are so much more down to earth than triathlon types, none of the elitism you get in that at all.
I turned in around 10pm and had a pretty reasonable sleep.
I liked the words erected and vapid xx
ReplyDeletePS Did you get any pics of the totty?