last entry

We are home, so this will be the last entry for this years blog.
I had a wonderfull time, amazing group of people, everybody worked, eat and had fun together, long time ago since we had such a nice group of support and riders.

I want to thank everybody for the amazing time.

Hopefully we will have the same great time in Portugal next year.

Bettie

9 finishers

Finally time to write, yesterday (saturday) was pretty hectic between the final MX and packing the container. Day 5 wente well for our riders, Stephen and Regis took it the easy way and took their time to get around, they wanted to be sure to finish. The western riders enjoyed the course of day 5. Looked a lot like home they said. A long day again with dinner at 08.30 at our pasta place.
The final MX started early for our 3 clubriders, they had to pick up their bikes at 08.35 with their first race at 09.00. Our Throphy riders started around noon in several B heats. In between we had the Sheepskull race which was hilarius. We started packing the crates right after the club heat was fninshed. Also the riders washed their bikes right after riding. Dave had a great race finished 4th in his heat. According to the experts and long time ISDE support persons Larry and Butch (Muriel) this was the first time that every rider finished. The race had a surprising finish with the dnf MX for Yuha Salminnen his fell and broke his trothle cabel. The Finland pit was right besides us and everybody was very dissapointed with this outcome. After the races we saw the Sheepskull purple helmets performe at the start grit. GREAT show. Started packing the container right after the race, were finished at 19.30 went with most riders and support for dinner in town, after dinner almost everybody took off to the party in Serres, arriving back at the hotel around six this morning. Mr. Fryberger did not look very good this morning when the taxi came to pick him up at 09.00.
Today was a rest day for us, saw some awesome caves and went to the beach.

day 4

Hi,

Day 4 started cool at 06.45 it was only 19C we needed a sweater to stay warm, after just an hour, it changed to bloody hot. At one time it was 42C in the pits, we have the garage doors open so the wind can blow through and makes it feel cooler. Our riders are doing fine, up in the moutains it is approx. 10 degrees cooler. The problem for them is still the dust. They are all doing fine, and enjoying themselves, a few complaints of painfull muscles, and they feel tired too. Just as the support crew, it was hard to get out of bed this morning for most of us, just one more day to go.
It is wonderful to see how much energy goes into changing tires at the end of the the day, Dave seems to have abslutley no trouble changing 2 tires in 5 minutes, also Craig is a true expert. Scott is turning into a pro too. Brian and Trent practiced a lot and that shows. Paul, Guillaume and Regis get better during the week. Stephen is used to his tire balls and is still adjusting to the moose.
Only Stephen had problems yesterday. He was exhausted from his tire change in the morning and did not drink enough during the day, he lost another 26 minutes.

day 3

No drama for the canadian team on day 3. There were some troubles at the end of the day with the clubriders in the last enduro test, the dust got so thick that they had to stop riders go on the course. Stephen and Regis were affected by that and lost a couple of minutes, during the jury meeting was decided that the last check would be cancelled so the minutes were deleted again. Also the endurotest for today will be cancelled, so the day will be shortened by 20 minutes today.
Unfortunately Kurt Caselli ended up in hospital with a concusion (? spelling). And the top Spanish rider broke a leg. There were a lot of clutch replacements in the workarea this morning. Spectaculair to watch.
Last night we had the complete Canadian team at dinner at restaurant Central in town. People in town are still not used to our presence. We feel like we are some kind of zoo animals, being checked out a lot.
Back to this morning, it is very hot this morning. Around 09.00 we are all swetting already, looks like it is going to be a hard day for the riders. Still B schedule, but the heath may be more of a problem. All riders got off good this morning, except for Stephen, he was strugling to get his front tire on. He was 7 mintues late for his start. Hopefully this will not effect him so much as last tuesday.

MANAGER HARD AT WORK

September 3rd, 10.30 - 11.20

Day 2

A nice day yesterday, our riders did good. All came in on time at impound in the evening, exept for Scott, somehow he messed up his times and was 2 minutes early and at check 5 he ended up 4 minutes late so 6 minutes on his account.
Stephen did not drink and eat enough yesterday, at check 5 he "hit the wall" and had to be feeded and loaded up with water before he could go on. Luckily he realized he did not drink enough and he did much better this morning, he ate and drank till it was time to start. Looked much more relaxed than the other days.
No exiting things happened this morning no tire changes or spectaculair problems. The weather is still very nice, hot in times. They expect even warmer weahter at the end of the week.
Today is going to be a long day for us and the riders. Because of the dust the jury decided to start 2 riders a minute (first 150 riders) to give the top riders a change to stay out of the dust. Our last rider will be in the pits around 18.40 this afternoon. We arrived here before 07.00 this morning. Hopefully we will be in time for dinner.
I will load some picuteres from this morning. I forgot to take a picture of Dave this morning. Hopefully I will remember tomorrow.

pictures day 1

I had to see some riders out. All six trophy guys went out on time, Brian changed his front in 6 minutes. Other riders were just fiddling around. Stephen is now preparing his weener `moose` for his rear tire.

Take a look at the pictures and try to find our French Connection Michel in his Michelin man suit.

The weather seems to be cooler than last week, this morning we even had to put on a jacket, we are now pealing of layers. Blue sky´s a little bit of wind will heat everything up again. On top of the mountain it seems to be much cooler, checkcrew that was up the mountain yesterday did not take off their long sleeved yerseys. Stephen changed his rear tire in his allowed work time just now, he had 10 seconds to spare of his minute. Must give him some confedence today.

Day 1

After a long day at the pits yesterday and no internet access last night, I had to wait until this morning to write the blog. There is a lot of action around me now, all riders all getting ready to start their day. Some preparing tires, others taping hands, others spending some time in the bathroom.
We had a very good day yesterday, the trophy team riders did not have any problems at all. The riders were all in good spirits last night and did their tire changing in the pits very good. It felt like a smooth machine and everybody did this for years.
Stephen had problems with is balls (moose balls). We had a look at his tire in the pits at noon and they did not look good, at check 4 the balls in his front tire were all gone. So he basicly had a flat tire, to prevent the tire coming of the rim and damaging the rim, the check crew advised the tiewrap the tire on the rim, also het clutch lever got bend, he repared it at check 5 this made him 20 minutes late. He put on a "normal" moose at the pits.
It took till 10.00 last night before the new start times were posted on line. To our surprise all 6 riders of the trophy team are within 20 minutes, makes this afternoons impound very interesting.
My husband got a fine for speeding last night 142 instead of 90. 175 EURO. Luckily they let him pay only 20 euro of the fine. Some experience that was.

Sunday day of rest

After a terrible boring opening ceremonies, long wait, walk in the arena, up the stage, walk out again. I thought we would be able to see the sheepskull riders perform their act, but we had to wait outside the arena whilst they did their thing. Very dissapointing. After dinner and a drink at the hotel early night. Sunday morning time for some touristy things, up to a second world war fort. Underground tunnels, interesting for non europeans, we have seen more of the tunnel stuff.

Visited a confent (monestary) very peacefull. A drive around the lake, ended the day. We had a wonderfull lunch on a square under a maple tree.

Monday morning, up at 5.30 (yuk) arrived at pits around 06.45 and got everything ready for our riders. They were very early and nervous. All off them got started without any problems. We will have them back here at the pits in 30 minutes. We can follow results of special tests on line for us this is a new, you feel more connected with the race.

Tech in

Hot day yesterday at impound, the boys walked tests early in the morning, prepping their bike for tech in later that day. We went up for sign in at 13.00 took some time but went through smoothly in the end. Got some team pictures taken after sign in. Came out pretty nice. After pictures time for Tech in, some riders were a bit nervous about that. They did not have to be, I never saw Tech in go so fast as here in Greece. I wanted to take some pictures, but they all were through before I new. We cleaned out the garage and went for the pool at the hotel. Almost the complete Canadian delegation was in the pool enjoying the cool water. Had dinner at our favorit restaurant in town on the square and went to bed early. It looked for a while we would have some thunderstorms coming over, but they died out in the early evening. We, and also the ground here is ready to take some rain.
This morning we have to do some last things, do the shopping, prepare the ready room for check crew stuff. Jan and Mike are getting gas in their small rental cars and Lee is with the pre riders to check our day 5.
Hopefully we will have some spare time to do some toeristy things later this afternoon.
If you want to wish your rider good luck, please send an e-mail to vdyk.isdesupport@home.nl and we will make sure he will get the message. We will invest in a printer at impound so we can make a print rather than showing them on line.

pictures

Pictures from yesterday, my batteries of the camera died when I was uploading them to the computer.
We now got acces to internet in our garage, really handy.

Pre tech in nerves

We have to tech in tomorrow afternoon around 4. The original registration forms of the shipped bikes was missing, we even tried to make up fake ones. It was not possible to get insurrance for the bikes if we did not have the forms. Finally they turned up this morning around noon, 1 worry less.
Mike did a lot of running around today to get the insurrance ready for tech in. 4 riders tests this morning to give the other riders some room in the garage to get the bike ready and to give the Belgian riders a change to get their bikes ready in the garage too.
After 1 we had all riders in and the Belgians stayed outside in the burning sun working on their bikes. We are still trying to find out how they will solve the space issue we have now.
Everything is getting together finally for Team Canada. Team Australia was told their club container was still in Egypt and it will not arrive in Serres before next week. The American container is also still somewhere, they expect it at the latest tomorrow. After time keeping and rider meeting a late dinner again. There is a Carnival town it was very busy on the square with very loud greek music. Celebrated Larry Bastedo's birthday with cake and candle and a very good song for him.

Ready for testriding

Breakfast at 08.00 again, all riders seemed to be ready to start prepping the bike for the race. It took most of them longer than we thought to arrive at impound. Around 10.00 everybody was working on their bike. It was a zoo until 13.oo riders were ready building a bike and riding the test course. Scott crashed over a man hole on the test track and hurt himself he got a black eye, painfull elbow and knee, he will be pretty stiff in the morning I believe. After his crash they changed the course. Stephen was having fun with his new rental Gas Gas. He came back from his test ride with a big grin on his face. Great to see him relaxed and having fun. Had a support and riders meeting at 7.15. No major things came up. Went for dinner around 09.00 amazing to see how many people are going for dinner this late even the childeren are wondering down on the street. Again an adventures dinner, Lamb, chicken and pork from the grill. Very good with free deserts, melon en great rum cake. Now we are drinking some wine and Tequila Sunrise.

container arrived.

After breakfast we drove up to the impound and found out the container was supposed to arrive in 2 hours around noon. Knowing south european style we expected it to arrive late in the afternoon.
So we took our time talking to Metzler, australian friends etc. Trend and Scott picked up their rental bikes and started working on them in our own garage. It is very hot again today, around 35 C we are all trying to get into the shade. Drinking lots of water. We decided to go for lunch around 13.00 we had to buy phonecards, and find a bank to get money. Very busy in town, no parking space, all one way streets. Luckily Lee put up a flag on the window, so people were very friendly and helping us out. Arriving back at impound the container just arrived. They unloaded it from the truck and we were ready to unload. It took 45 minutes to unload the container with 6 or 7 strong man. Craig started working on the bike right after unloading. Several riders were walking tests today, and were very surprised the hear the container was unloaded already. After the introduction meeting we went to dinner with a group, very good and lots.

No container

Arrived this morning around 05.00 after a long fleight and drive. Luckily we could pick up or rental right after we arrived on Thessaloniki airport. Slept in the car for a 2 hours and had breakfast at the hotel at 08.00. Drove up the the impound area, finding out nothing had happened there. There was a road racing race yesterday, they started building the Six days area this morning. No containers yet, only the vendors were are ready for service.
Canada got a garage appointed for the service area in the evening. Talking to the Aussies, the garage is not very spacious. They were trying to find a bigger space. We expect the container to arrive tomorrow morning, so we can start work on the bikes. Impouding is already on Thursday, lots of work still to do. The weather is pretty steamy, around 30 C at the hotel, down at impound it will turn even hotter.

On our way

Left home yesterday, spend a night in a hotel in Amsterdam, enjoyed it very much.
We are now killing some time in Zurich, almost 7 hours before we head on to Thessaloniki, were we will arrive around 02.00 in the morning. Wait for the rental car and than on our way to Serres.

Prepartions

Behind the scenes we already did a lot of work to get everything organized for this ISDE.
Shipments are on their way to Greece from Canada and Holland and it will hopefully all come together at the end of August.