PORT Macquarie Cycling Club duo Alani Cockshutt and Miren Davies aren't daunted by the prospect of flying to New Zealand on Wednesday.
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The two teenagers will head across the ditch as part of a NSW development squad for an eight-day road and track tour where they will compete against some of the Kiwis' best junior cyclists.
While they will give away a couple of years worth of experience in the under-17 and under-19 divisions, the unknown nature of the competition meant there was nothing to be greatly concerned about.
"I don't really know what the girls are going to be like because I don't know where I compare to some of the New Zealanders," Cockshutt said.
"But I definitely want to be up with the girls in the NSW team and give them (the New Zealanders) a bit of competition."
They don't know what to expect.
"It's good not to put pressure on ourselves to achieve a position because we don't have that expectation so we don't have pressure to perform," she said.
Cockshutt will compete for the first time in the team pursuit and admitted while it was their first serious year of competition they were looking forward to the experience.
I don't really know what the girls are going to be like because I don't know where I compare to some of the New Zealanders.
- Alani Cockshutt
"We've got both team and individual bunch races so it's a pretty wide variety," she said.
"It's the first time competing without any of our family so we're just going over with the team so that's going to be a new experience."
The team will travel from Sydney to Invercargill on October 2 and return on October 10 where they will compete in the Yunca Junior Tour of Southland and the National Secondary School Track championships.
Davies said it was an exciting opportunity to be selected for with races at Oceania level looming on the horizon.
"We'll race them in the Oceania level in the next couple of years so it will be good to see what they're like and I think this is the first time they've taken this team to New Zealand to race," she said.
The atmosphere over there will be really good and it will be good to have an experienced group of girls who will help us out.
- Miren Davies
"It will be a full-on week, but I don't think it's anything more than we have done before.
"The atmosphere over there will be really good and it will be good to have an experienced group of girls who will help us out."
While there was no specific selection criteria, Cycling NSW are interested in riders who have displayed development potential and who support NSW junior road and track racing.
"It's good that we're racing with the NSW team because being able to work as a team and have people having your back will be really helpful," Davies said.
"Each day there are two events so we're basically doing everything we can in cycling."
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