Turkish Nightmare
Sebastian Batchelor | Friday 23rd April, 2010
Well where do I begin,
a simple four day trip to race in Turkey turns in to what can only be described
as a total nightmare! Here is my day-by-day account of how it happened.
Day 1 – 14/04/10
I caught a train from
York station with my Dad up to Edinburgh before making a change on to the line
to Glasgow. We had to fly from Glasgow as flights to Antalya in Turkey are not
that regular at this time of the year. Having set off from home at 11.00 we
made it in good time for are flight at 18.00. The flight was on time and we got
in to Turkey at around midnight to pick up the hire car. After a bit of
confusion due to a distinct lack of road signs in Turkey (something that made
navigation incredibly difficult) we arrived at our Hotel in Antalya at 1.00.
Day 2 – 15/04/10
After getting up just
after 10.00 Turkish time having had an ok sleep we found the hotel breakfast
was finished so we went to the Supermarket and stocked up on some food for the
next couple of days and ate breakfast out the back of the car. The race was in
Alanya which we were told was about 1.5-2 hours down the coast, which was where
we were going to stay for the race. Having got to Alanya in good time the next
problem was finding the ApartHotel. The map we had showing where the hotel was
turned out to be totally wrong so after trying a few different theories on
where the place might be we decided to try and find the Municipal Building
which was where we understood the race was being organised from. We managed to
find it without too much difficulty after acquiring a map from another hotel
and found a woman who was very helpful in giving us information on the race and
finding out where are hotel was. Having been given directions we finally found
the hotel 4 hours after we set off from Antalya. Then the next hurdle was
getting the electricity to work in our apartment which seemed to have a mind of
its own and decide when it wanted to be on and off, but hey what do you expect
from a place that cost only £30 for 4 nights!
Day 3 – 16/04/10
Totally exhausted from
are travelling over the previous two days we had a relaxed start, that was ok
as we couldn’t do anything until registration opened at 15.00 at the Cultural
Centre. Having got entered and given directions to the course which was a 30
minute drive in to the mountains we arrived for course practice an hour later.
No officials where there but the course was as well marked as a World Cup so
there was no problem in finding where to go. I was really surprised with how
hard the course was, firstly it was incredibly technical both up hill and down
and there were a few really nasty steep very loose climbs. Obviously at 30
degrees it was bone dry, dusty and fairly washy on the corners. After practice
it was clear that 6 laps round the course in the blistering heat was going to
be far from a walk in the park!
Day 4 – 17/04/10
Race day was finally
upon us and when I got up it was clear that it was going to be a real scorcher,
even when I was eating breakfast the temperature was well in to the 20’s. After
getting up to the course in good time and warming up on the road I was on the
start line at 14.00. I had a second row grid position and managed to get off to
an alright start. Annoyingly for the second race in a row someone rode into me
going in to the first section of single-track jamming the drive chain. After
loosing a few places I managed to get going again and started working my way
back through the pack. Having said that I was feeling dreadful, I was pushing
my body but it wasn’t responding very well, riding at such a high intensity in
the heat, which I had only a day and a half to adapt to, was playing havoc with
my body. I was trying to force liquid down at any point and was pouring water
on the back of my neck in an attempt to cool myself down. After two laps of
really struggling my body kicked in to gear and I started to feel good, I was
still passing people in the field and was closing in on the top 10. With the
temperature not far off 30 degrees and the dust that was in the air it was a
very unpleasant race. Going in to the last lap I had got up to 8th
place only to stack it on a technical descent half way round the lap. In the
crash my saddle was bent backwards making it almost impossible to ride in the
saddle, and by this point in the race my legs were screaming every time I got
out of the saddle, not a good situation. Annoying I lost a place in the last
half of the lap and finished in 9th place. Although I am pleased
with 9th in a UCI C1 race, which gave me some more points and
confidence ahead of Dalby the following weekend. That night after the
race we realised the extent of the damage the erupting volcano had caused on
flights and it didn’t look good for out flight in the early hours of Monday
morning back in to Manchester.
Day 5 – 18/04/10
All day we were on the
internet getting information about the flight disruption and trying to find out
what the likelihood was of us being able to get on to out scheduled flight.
After getting no information from Thomas Cook who we were flying with we
started to look for other options of how we were going to get home. We
discovered that Rome airport was open and we could get a flight up to Istanbul
on Monday and then on to Rome on Tuesday before hiring a car and driving to
Calais to catch a ferry back to the UK. The next hurdle we faced was that out
Credit Card became blocked when trying to book the flights. After a call to the
bank we though we would be sorted and had everything organised for out trip
home. It took a full day on the internet but we thought we had a pretty good
plan.
Day 6 – 19/04/10
With out flight up to
Istanbul not until the evening I had time to go for a ride so we drove to the
race course and I was able to get in a good couple of hours. I also made a few
friends with the local wild dogs which roam about in the mountains! We got back
to the hotel and packed up after lunch before driving to Antalya. We dropped
the hire car back and checked our bags in to our flight up to Istanbul. After
that we then found out that we had not actually got on to our flight to Rome
the following day, as when our card had been rejected it had not been unblocked
and the payment re-submitted fast enough, so they had sold our seats and the
flight was full. Straight away back in to another stressful situation! I was
looking at the departures TV and saw that there was a flight going to Vienna
from Antalya that day, so we immediately looked to see if we could get on it.
We discovered it was full but we could get on a flight at the same time to
Salzburg. We got our luggage back from our Istanbul flight and quickly got
seats to Salzburg. Then had a quick taxi transfer to the International Terminal
and got checked on to the flight. We arrived at Salzburg, Austria, at 23.00 and
went to see if we could hire a car to start driving back. Everything was closed
so we check in to a hotel and booked a hire car for the next day, finally
getting to bed a 1.00.
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Day 7 – 20/04/10
We had an early
breakfast at 7.00 and got straight to the hire car place to pick up the car.
After a bit of a wait we were sorted and on our way north to Calais. It is a
huge distance to go which wasn’t helped by accidents and endless road works
which made the whole journey colossal. We arrived at the Calais Ferry terminal
at 21.00 CET to see what ferry options were available for foot passengers. We
couldn’t believe what we saw when we got there, a huge queue extending out of
the door of people waiting to buy tickets and get on a ferry back to the UK. We
were advised that the wait time was between 3-4 hours but it wasn’t very likely
that we would catch the last ferry across at 23.40. On that note we decided we
would come back the next morning and see what we could get on. After eventually
finding a hotel that wasn’t fully booked of people doing the same thing as us
we got some thing to eat and got to bed at 12.00.
Day 8 – 21/04/10
After another early
start at 6.00 we drove to the ferry port to try and get tickets to get over to
Dover. Yet again there was a massive queue, this time winding around inside, so
after a long wait we eventually got tickets and could join the queue to get on
the boat. We somehow managed to get on the 8.35 and got to Dover an hour and a
half later, it felt amazing to be back in the UK! My Mum drove down to pick us
up and I was back at home at 15.45 almost exactly 48 hours after leaving the
Hotel in Alanya!
Here I come Dalby…….
