by Dan_K » Mon Jan 04, 2010 2:24 pm
I was fortunate to be one of the lucky 300 who got invited to ride with Team Sky for the launch today in London.
Basically, you had to put your name down on the Team Sky Facebook page and they selected people at random. I got a text between Christmas and New Year saying that I had to be available today and that the start location would be within a 3 mile radius of Trafalgar Square and I would receive a text at 7.30 this morning.
I live in Croydon so decided to get the train into London early this morning (before the 7-9.30 bike restrictions).
Got into London Victoria around 7 and went for breakfast. Then got a text at 7.30 saying I needed to be at the London Eye by 8.30 to sign on.
Rode the 3 miles to the London Eye and signed on with the Sky team. There were around 50-100 people waiting in the freezing cold but it was worth the wait...
The Sky crew had split the 300 riders into 3 diferent start locations and each group rode in to converge at St James Park.
Met Ashley from ACC at my start, he was getting loads of pics of all the riders.
My start location was the star studded start... we had Dave Brailsford, Shane Sutton, Geraint Thomas, Russ Downing (I think), a few other riders I don't know and.... Bradley Wiggins!
We all rode together for about 4 miles at a steady 15-18mph pace. There were some splits due to traffic lights etc and then we all arrived at St James Park. We had the team cars riding with us, a Sky helicopter filming it all from above and photographers and cameras everywhere.
It was funny because, people were charging to get to the front to meet the riders and Bradley had somehow snuck to the back of our group and was casually chatting away!
All 300 of us then did 3 laps of St James Park with all the pro riders, managed to pick Chris L from Addiscombe out and have a chat with him. We collected a free Team Sky musette with a couple of bits in it (no jersey unfortunately!)
Got to say hello to Bradley and take a pic before I cycled the 13 miles home.
Rode half the way back with Ashley and had a nice chat.
All in all, a very good day....
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