Hats Off to Glenn and the family at the TDU! – that is not them in the picture, but this is their story…
“Let’s go to Adelaide for dad’s birthday” my wife said.
“Sure my love, I have loads of holiday to use up this year, let’s make a family holiday out of it!” I replied. I could come out of this looking like a really sensitive family kind of guy!
“Two taxis? We’ll fit all the bags into the boot of one taxi.”
“No sweetheart, better get two just to make sure.”
We loaded up one taxi and Laura was right. All of the bags did fit into one taxi…except one that I brought down from the spare room.
“What the hell is that?!” Laura exclaimed.
There was no hiding it now. The big Cannasia Racing logo on the side of the hard case gave the game away.
“Ummm, it’s my bike sweetheart; thought I’d get some riding in while we’re over there!”
The cat was well and truly out of the bag now. A 10 minute ride to the airport gave me no opportunity to explain, and my ‘family guy’ image was starting to desert me! Laura was in one taxi with the luggage and kids, I was in the other taxi helping the driver negotiate the Singapore freeways as the bike box had completely obscured his rear view mirror. The approach to the check-in desks also gave me no chance to explain. I had become preoccupied with the size and weight of the box. Was it too large, fellow passengers bike boxes looked truly aerodynamic compared to my brick of a box and how much did it all weigh?…Please be under 23kg. In addition to the bike, all of my clothes etc. were horseshoed into that box. It was my single piece of checked-in luggage that Qantas allowed.
“Take it down to oversize.” the check-in assistant instructed.
It was weighed. 22kg. Phew, no additional baggage fees to pay.
The two hour wait in the departure lounge did give me the opportunity to explain everything, including the Bupa Challenge Ride I had booked myself on to. Fortunately my wife is completely lovely and I got to ride some of the best roads I have ever ridden as well as catch up with the family. It all worked out well. A week watching the racing and a week spent on Kangaroo Island with the in-laws eating, drinking and teaching the kids the best way to catch stuff ‘rock pooling’.
Attached are a few photographs that I took at the TDU (see gallery at the base of this article) and below is the video link taken from my bike on the Bupa Challenge Tour. Apologies for not videoing the end of the ride…GoPro really need to work on battery life! Got to love the spectator 54 seconds in ringing the mini cow bell for us all.
The cycling highlight of the trip was on Friday 25th Jan riding the 126.5km Bupa Challenge which runs from Modbury in Adelaide to Tanunda in the wine making region of the Barossa Valley. The ride started off at 6:30am and was completed in a little over 4 hours by us amateurs with the professional riders following us a few hours later along the same route on Stage 4 of Tour Down Under. The stage was won by Andre Greipel (who avoided the sprint crashes 500m from the finish) in a time of 3h 2m after the peloton caught an impressive breakaway by Philippe Gilbert and Damien Howson 8km before the stage finish.
Good luck to everyone riding Paris Roubaix in April.
Thanks,
Glenn.
- Easy does it
- Eyeing up the finish
- World Champ – Phil Gilbert
- Team Sky getting it together
- Jump on the TDU Train
- Here comes the sprint
