FanPost

Pubs, puberty and a Red bike.

via photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net

Stage 2 of the 2010 is done and dusted. Greipel won again in a bunch sprint after a small break got swallowed containing a race fit young up and coming Aussie and a lazy as all shit more experienced European anchor....sounds familiar for the TDU doesn't it? Timmy Roe on Monday, Kempy yesterday, just who from UniSA is prepared to try their hand today?
I had a shocker, I'm 'pre-menstrual' as my body sends out a flood of searcher hormones to get me to produce more testosterone...sadly when they reach their destination nobody's home. So i have a big syringe of the stuff sitting here tempting me to take it a day early...Oh! Go on then...I will!!

I wonder if this is a familiar scene at any of the rooms in the Hilton this morning??

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So...yesterday after finding a suitable spot to give the Limo some SBS time for you folks far away (parked at the second sprint on the run to the line but they cut to a chopper shot just as they should've cut to a Moto shot and vice-versa...better effort than Stage 1 though where my idyllic, generic Barossa Valley setting was COMPLETELY bypassed by the coverage.....if I was paranoid!!!) I headed to the KOM. I like hills, I like riding them....however, Checkers hill is a fucker of a climb with 15% plus bits on both sides..OK when I'm fit, not when I'm bitchin!! I rode up the back (after taking a detour up the equally formidable Martins Hill just so I could get this photo of Checker.

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which follows the ridge up to the high point...doesn't look much from here but if you want to see the speed they get to check this out....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oiwKcJ04Tw

I went over to the other side (did a Doris as i call it!) of the hill to check out the crowds on the actual KOM climb..awesome as per usual and my PdC hearts Jens road-writing from last year is still clear as a bell :-)

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Young David Kemps took today's KOM but I wasn't there so I have no pictures and I only use my pictures in my reports!! :-) Here he is with Delage from the Pharma boys about twenty clicks from the finish just before they shook hands and were swamped.

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I had to ride like a man possessed to get ahead of them to take that photo. My plan had been to tuck in behind the Green Light entourage for the first 5 km then take a 14km over hill short-cut as they did a 25km detour around the hill for the second sprint at Mt Torrens. The plan was de-railed half way down the hill when at 70 km/hr my I-phone ear buds dis-lodged, flew back and got caught in my back wheel.....yay!! Unperturbed I soldiered on but everyone I caught said I had no chance of making it....no fast echelons to follow or lead like i thought...damn!! So...a solo TT over Mt Torrens and I nearly got a stiffy when I got to the T junction just as the lead motor-cycles cam through. Distance 20km, Ascent 206M, Ave Speed, 33.6km/hr, HR Ave 140...I had plenty left despite the bitchin :-) The rest of the peleton came through but I missed the front guys with an equipment (fingers) malfunction.

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The guys at the back of the lead pack didn't seem to be pedalling too hard for 50km/hr.

My plan then was to follow them until the bike path that follows the road would allow me to pass them waving my PdC banner but the lazy arse bastards at the back were way to slow and the ugly big policeman on his motor cycle stood guard over me when I told him his efforts to evict me from the road were falling on deaf ears.

It was too late, I wasn't going to make the finish so I back-tracked to pick up the Limo. I managed to pick up 7 discarded drink bottles on my way back to the Volvo. They're generic TDU bottles but one of mine has DL written on it...I wonder who'd had their lips around that one?? I went back to the Tour Village and took some bike pics...I like this one the best...the attention to detail, the colours...shame about the outfits!!

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It's going to be a furnace out there today on a very tough course. The three laps around Stirling will be a chance for someone to win this tour. I couldn't see Greipel sticking with some GC guys if they really decided to put the hammer down. Alfie won this stage last year and looked sharp at the finish yesterday. I think this is Jose's stage. Valverde and LLSG look so relaxed...waiting to pounce me thinks.

It's a pub day for me...the keys to the Limo will stay safely locked away. Pub, puberty and a red bike.....yee haa!!