The Festival of Speed to New York!

Sadly it is my last week here in Trexlertown, I am already making the most of it by taking a day trip to New York by myself!

The UCI Festival of Speed had a Keirin for the females sprint athletes - Final line up: Stephanie Torres, Mandy Marquardt, Jennifer Valente, Dana Feiss, Alysha Keith and myself. I was very happy to have taken the keirin win from Dana second week in a row.

FULL RESULTS 

The Morning Call Article

Valley Preferred Cycling Centre Write up 

Elimination at the Festival of Speed -  currently doing approximately 10 neutral laps

Prepared

NEW YORK - I took a bus from Wescosville to New York and yes I did take a "fanny pack" with me, it was so convenient walking around in the 30/86 degree heat. I did not want to take a backpack and look cool when I doubled strapped - I thought that would be too hard and embarrassing. I purchased a city pass which gave me access to 1. Empire State Building Observatory 2. American Museum of Natural History 3. The Metropolitan Museum of Art 4. Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) 5. Top of the Rock OR Guggenheim Museum and 6. Circle Line Cruise OR Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island. I got on the 0800 bus and arrived in New York at 1000, too easy right? I Arrived at the bus terminal and followed people that looked like they knew where they were going until everyone went different ways and I could not find my way out of the terminal - we started underground and there were many levels how hard is it to get out of the terminal! I popped out onto some street mapped out where I needed to go and off I went....to the Empire State Building! The views were amazing. 

Hope you enjoy these pictures of what I got up to in New York!!

Empire State Building and Madison Square Garden? Building.

86 Levels High - not bad! Freedom Tower in the distance

The American Museum of Natural History was where the movie Night at the Museum was filmed. The Museum's renowned fossil halls feature the largest collection of dinosaur fossils in the world! 

Our mate T-Rex

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the world's largest and finest museums, with collections of nearly two million works of art spanning more than 5,000 years of world culture, from prehistory to the present from every part of the globe.

ARMS AND ARMOR

Armour of Henry Herbert (1534 - 1601) - 27.24kg (60 lb. 1 oz.)

 EGYPTIAN ART - Egypt is a place I would love to travel too, it is on my bucket-list!

 GREEK AND ROMAN ART - Greece is also another place I need to visit, so much history!

 2 - HOUR CIRCLE LINE CRUISE

David - the on board guide

BMW

The Statue of Liberty

Times Square!!

View from the Empire State at night - obviously

America: Week 2

Can not believe this but, I am half way through my stay here in Trexlertown! Well time fly's when you are having fun, right? Unfortunately I don't have any racing photos to share with you! If anyone know's any photography's floating around here in Trexlertown - let me know!

World Series of Bicycling: Last night I was very happy to have won the Keirin Cup to Dana Feiss. Here is an article from the Morning Call, wording was slightly out, but the only one I could find enjoy - http://www.mcall.com/sports/mc-keirin-cup-06142013-20130614,0,3302937.story

Results: http://www.thevelodrome.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/June-14-results2.pdf

Sooo being in this country, the United States of America has been a real big eye opener, not sure if that is an understatement or not, but I have experienced many "language" barrier situations, though my highlight has been explaining us "Kiwi's". So for those American's that are reading and not sure what a "Kiwi" is, please do read on...

A piece of fruit high in fibre and Vitamin C caled Kiwifruit

So, us New Zealander's are also known as Kiwi's, this is not associated with the fuzzy green piece of fruit but a Kiwi that is truly unique, it is the only bird in the world with nostrils at the of its beak, they are nocturnal, which means that they come out of their burrows after nightfall to forage for insects, grubs, earthworms, fallen fruit and native plants. They have very tiny wings, but cannot fly, their feathers are more like fur. Their eggs are also the largest in the world in relation to the size of the bird laying it.

A Kiwi amongst the Silver Ferns

Koru

"So that is why you guys have feathers on your skin-suits?" - Nope that is also incorrect, to confuse you guys a little more we have what is called a "Silver Fern" on our skin-suits. So like the Silver Ferns netball team, right?..... What's netball? Sounds like "nipple" when us "Kiwi's" say it, so I found out. But it is not handball, basketball or football it is just netball - 'you put the ball through the net'. Here is a short introduction video to what netball is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBuxsRnU50A

The Silver Fern is out national symbol and is named for the silver underside of its fronds. The fronds are the ferns leaves and when they are young they are tightly coiled into a tight spiral. This shape is called a 'koru' in Maori, it is a popular motif in many New Zealand designs. Silver ferns are typically found in moist, forested areas because they require lots of water. Tree ferns are some of the most distinctive features of our forests.

Underlining of the fern - Silver Fern

So that was something a little different, hopefully I have taught a few things to you Americans :)

Thanks for reading - ciao for now,

Steph  

America: Week 1

Sooooo, this week has gone way too fast for my liking! I arrived after a long haul, unfortunately I didn't have Birdman to count up the hours of travel but I had a 12 hour layover in LA before flying into Philadelphia where Mandy and Jamie picked me up. Before we drove to my final destination, I just so happened to have flown in on the same day of one of America’s big one-day race the ParxCasino Philly Classic. So, I was very fortunate enough to have seen what the “Wall” was all about and see Team Novo Nordisk in action for the very first time and of course see some kiwis smashing it! The males raced around the 12 mile circuit 10 times and the females 5 times.

Again here is Stretch from the Harlem "Shakers" I mean't Globetrotters in one of LAX's Terminals

Unfortunately the first Friday night/US Sprint Grand Prix were cancelled due to the weather and were postponed until Saturday – which was not so bad. Mandy qualified first with an amazing time and a personal best of 11.93 and I qualified second, funny enough we both made it to the finals! This was the first time we had raced against each other and the first time the crowd had seen two female type 1 diabetics going head to head, which was a pretty awesome feeling! With Mandy only just making the transition from endurance to sprinting and me with more race experience, I took the win and 5th overall. You can find all the results for the night here. The racing definitely woke up the legs after training in the cold back home, but it was so good getting back into it! Racing recap can be found here.

Chris Knight/Special to the Morning Call/June 8 2013

Mandy and I after night 1

Going into the second week I have finally got use to riding and also driving literally on the right side of the road. The weather is looking nice for this Fridays Keirin Grand Prix, so am looking forward to that. I also have an exam at the end of the week so I will be studying up a storm!!

Adios :)

These cool looking barns are every

Run down cottage, came come soaking wet.

Borrowing this awesome Harry Havnoonian for the month :)

Rainy days