Lunar Chicks - All Set to Explore Ireland

Rob Howard / 29.07.2015

In the race hall, setting up her blue race bike boxe and sorting  equipment I met up with Nikki Smit from one of the two South African teams racing here.  She is racing with the only all female team in the race, the Lunar Chicks, who have been in Ireland a few days now and spent some time in Dublin before getting on yesterdays shuttle bus from the airport to Limmerick.

“I’ve always wanted to cycle around Ireland,” she said, “and when this race came up I thought that’s an opportunity to ride in Ireland so it was too good a chance to miss. 

“Plus Ivan and his team from Ballyhoura have come over to South Africa to race Expedition Africa a couple of times now and we wanted to come and support his race. It was actually cheaper to come here than race Expedition Africa in Swaziland for us as we are from the Cape, so we thought why not try something different.

“Racing in a new country is always different and we’ll be getting used to the maps, but they look better than ours at home. In the Transkei a marked track can be either a goat trail or a highway!”  The race is using Ordnance Survey Ireland maps, which will be given out later today at the race briefing.

She added, “One thing I’m getting used to is having so much daylight, which is good. I’m surprised when its light at 10pm – just not used to it. The other thing I’m not used to is mud. I know it’s been very wet here recently and at home all my riding is on sand, so that’s what I’m used to, not mud. That may be a challenge for us, but we’ll see.”

The team line up is Smit, Janine Linder, Jessica Crewdson and Kim van Kets and with two new team members they will soon get to know each other much more closely as they work together over the 3 days of competition.

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