Tour Downunder - More highlights

It has been an awesome week here, we are lucky enough to be staying in Glenelg, by the beach in Adelaide and it is a hive of activity for the teams here for the Tour Downunder. Glenelg is just a beachside town and the tour teams who are all staying at the Hilton in Adelaide seem to ride a loop which includes a stop here in Glenelg for a coffee which means we get to see them if we are out and about at the right time.

Yesterday was the Anti Cancer crieterium and we got to see the teams presentation and I had a great place to stand just in front of some enthusiastic kids collecting autographs.

In the criterium, there were a few breakaways including one which included two Tour DeFrance winners, Oscar Pereiro and Lance Armstrong, but it came down to a sprint and Greg Henderson from New Zealand won the race.....The Tour starts on Tuesday (tomorrow).

But he big highlight was that Shane went to the supermarket while I was just playing with the pics I took yesterday and he came home and told me that Allan Davis (last years tour winner), and Oscar Pereiro (The Tour DeFrance winner) were having coffee in Glenelg along with team mate Gorazd Stangeli, so I grabbed the camera and went down to have a look and ended up talking to them all. They are very approachable and it was great, Goazd is Slovakian and had great grasp of English, with Periero you had to speak slow which was difficult given how excited I was to be talking to legends........When they left I got a bit teary, I was a bit overcome with emotion, I was talking to a winner of the Tour De France and he was very friendly. I took lots of pics and cannot believe how many people I have met this week and the tour starts tomorrow.

So I am barracking for Astana at this stage Pereiro is a very good looking man..........I took pics of his shoes which have his name embroided on them, Stangelj asked if I wanted to take a pic of his shoes, he said becasue his name is "specialised"....pretty funny guys....

So these are some random pics, Cadel during the race, Lances bike taken on the day of the big "twitter" ride, Me and Oscar Pereiro - very exciting, the famous shoes, and Lance during the criterium....it has been a big few days and no doubt the best is yet to come, cant wait for the race to start and I am sure you can get all of the information about the race at cyclingnews.com or just google "Tour Downunder".

So thanks Shane for the heads up for a fantastic opportunity to not only take pics but to talk to the riders. PS Pereiro has removed his leg hair lots of ways, Laser and waxing and shaving.....just for the record. It is the off season for these guys in Europe at the moment, but they are looking forward to a great week of racing.