Pre-Timor

Timor-Leste celebrated it's 10-year anniversary last Sunday, August 30th. Unfortunately my flight left the day before so I missed the big party. As the youngest country in the world, they must have been pretty excited. Despite having missed such a great celebration, I was blessed with the tremendous opportunity to participate in their first annual Tour de Timor.

Let's rewind a few weeks. Just off the jet-way into Changi Airport, arriving back from my amazing trip to Australia, I received an SMS from my good friend, Grant Knisely. (To whom I'm forever grateful for filming & editing my best job in the world application video). "Are you in Singapore?" said Grant's SMS. "Yes, why?" I reply. "Check your email." said Grant.

My email contained nothing more than a link to www.tourdetimor.com. Little bits of information jumped out at me. First annual, 450km mountain bike race, Timor-Leste, etc. Needless to say I was excited. Now Grant had told me about the race because he was hoping I'd be interested in helping shoot a documentary of the ladies from The Chain Reaction Project, but I thought it would be fun to ride. Fortunately for Grant, he got all the help he needed.

So my training began. 3 weeks to get race ready and I have to give major props to Fraser Morrison for the amazing training regimen.

Huge credit goes to Hup Leong Bicycle Shop for the demo bike on which I both trained and raced. Gilbert is the man! If you need anything bicycle, head down to Chinatown - at Pearl's Hill & Upper Cross St.