First day on the boards

This morning Brandie and I went for a fabulous ride to the town of Lonato. The road was flat and straight and the views of the snow on the nearby mountains did nothing to dampen our enthusiasm. In Brandie's case that may have been because she couldn't actually see the snow but more likely that it was a beautiful clear, sunny day and perfect cycling conditions. Oh yeah, and we didn't actually have to go as far as the snow!

This afternoon was the team's first experience of the Velodromo Montichiari. Although very similar in shape to Adelaide, it's very different in appearance with no logos on the banking and very little adornment anywhere else. Given it's a reasonably new velodrome, I expect the sponsors names haven't quite made it into paint just yet.

And how about that ceiling structure. It's quite spectacular to stand underneath it.

We had a good training session with the athletes undertaking a variety of sessions dictated by level of residual jet lag, from just getting the legs moving to a range of more serious efforts.  The track seems quite fast to the point that there were even a couple of personal best times recorded, but I couldn't tell you who did them because we have to keep the opposition guessing!  We have been joined by one of Cycling Australia's best mechanics, John Keegan and thanks to him, all the bikes are running smoothly, gear changes are undertaken with a minimum of fuss and my hands aren't anywhere near as greasy as last week. Thank you John!

With only four more days to the start of competition, the countdown is really on and our crew is looking really good.  More later...