Cycling at the Tour Down Under in Adelaide

Members of my cycling club – The Bayside Bandidos - have been attending the Adelaide Tour Down Under cycling event for quite some time. After hearing about the good fun they had been having I thought that it would be great to attend one myself. There was much hype with Cadel Evans and Lance Armstrong and a number of other top names attending, so I had to go !
From Cycling News
 “The Tour Down Under organiser has offered BMC Racing Team a wildcard to contest January’s opening round of the ProTour, in a move that will see International Cycling Union (UCI) road world champion Cadel Evans race on home soil in the rainbow jersey.
I was surprised at how great this event was. We cycled out to the beginning and / or the end of each stage and socialised in the evenings.  The usual process is to start with a warm up ride and have a coffee or breakfast. We’d discuss the route of the day and intended rendezvous points.
The streets are lined with people in the towns or at start/finish points. It’s all abuzz when the peloton moves through.  It is so thrilling to watch the cyclists powering on through at a frenetic pace in such a highly compact group. One error of judgement and they are done.
Adelaide is a hot place in the summer, soaring into the 40s quite frequently and this week there was no exception. Lunchtime beverage regeneration was a requisite recovery procedure before heading home or to the next intercept point if there is one.
No matter how much sun lotion you put on, you will glow under the sun’s omnipresent radiance, especially when we are riding during the middle of the day.
We rented various places, and their would be an invitation to attend a debrief session to watch a movie, have a chinwag or share ice  cream and wine.
There is a common area where the mechanics prepare the bikes. It’ s open to the public so we have an opportunity to witness how it all proceeds behind the scenes. These guys are vital to the success of the cycling team.
The team members and the stage standings are also listed.
I did get to see my hero Cadel, but missed the autograph.
Exciting also was the ride down the hill back to Adelaide with the teams on the return from stage two of the race from Stirling.
It’s a noisy affair and the restaurant Bocelli’s gets good custom when we decide to attend. We visited a couple of times, with an ad-hoc decision process, with our pre-trip organising email saying it all:
I dare say the itinerary will kick-off with the Prologue Sunday evening followed by dinner @ Bocelli's. The Liggett Ride 6.00am Monday at the Hilton???
After that nothing confirmed.
Let's pray they've had all their heatwaves for the summer...
Wilunga Hill is a much anticipated stage with the cyclists going round twice, we pick a prime spot to sit and enjoy.
I did have a little incident to relate.  Stage 4 was a from Norwood to Goolwa, a 150km stage. The temperature was in the 40s and it was howling a gale. Instead of catching the bus back I chose to ride back to Adelaide with a couple of others. Going up one of the hills my legs cramped and it wasn’t going to happen: I couldn’t make it. I was probably 40 or so km out from Adelaide. Luckily I was able to hitch back with a kindly person who had a ute. I was so out of it that I left my phone and repair kit in his car. Fortunately I had the ‘ICE’ message on the phone so Caroline got a call, then it got relayed back to me through the circuit of information trails that Caroline had with common friends in the Bandidos. All good !
On the references below are more details of the stage routes and various news articles.

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Location: Adelaide SA, Australia

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