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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Bigger Better More Tour Down Under


This year the Tour Down Under professional cycling event held here in South Australia is higher profile with official UCI accreditation. This the first time that the professional tour has held an event outside Europe. All the big teams are here with their outrageously expensive carbon fibre contraptions and well honed human speed machines to pilot them.

I still wonder about cycling. All that expensive gear just to haul your way up the hills, weave through traffic and generally exhaust yourself. Not for me, lazy person that I am. My colleague is doing the amateur race tomorrow on sections of road that to my way of thinking are really designed for powered vehicles. Good luck to him. One of my other colleagues is going to watch it on Friday. I asked him why he would give up a day of work to see a bunch of young athletes whizz by in 30 seconds. That is what his partner did yesterday. At least it is free to enter.

I love the Tour De France, which they show live late at night here in Australia. So scenic. Great to participate in the event from afar and on the couch.

It reminded me of one of my first blog posts, which still holds true. I am those people except without the bike and the skin tight clothes.

Adelaide has many great sports events and the Tour Down Under is just one. Tomorrow is the fourth cricket test between Australia and India. My work task for the next two days is to drink beer and watch the cricket with some clients. Now that is my kind of sport.

2 comments:

jmb said...

How interesting that the professional bike tour is in Australia. I think that's great. I too love the Tour de France which we watch every day for the whole event. Those amazing lean athletes in their aerodynamic gear are great to watch and the strategies are interesting. How about those great Aussie sprinters? Too bad the whole sport is still riddled with drugs and today's heroes are tomorrow's devils.

Jayne said...

Gee what a hard slog you've got ahead of you LOL.

Tagged you for a meme ;)