There’s a window of about 2 weeks each year in Adelaide where cyclists don’t have to be ashamed of their shaved legs and lycra shorts, where they ride 2 abreast on the roads with impunity and where it’s almost impossible to get a seat outside one of Adelaide’s many cafes which become inundated with riders slurping down a post-ride cappuccino.
Of course I’m talking about the Tour Down Under.
When it rolled into town 12 months ago I was hyped, I’d been home from 7 years abroad for about a month and the prospect of Lance Armstrong cycling his way around little old Adelaide was ever so exciting. I managed to get some pretty decent shots of Lance last time round and it’s probably fair to say my approach to getting photos this time round was a little more loose and lazy. I trundled down to the opening night round the East End pretty late and managed to see them whizzing past a handful of times before it was all over, I still managed to get some shots I was pretty happy with though.
My next encounter was 5 days later when they virtually rode past my front door. I think it’s kind of an unwritten law that when an elite sport of any kind takes place within walking distance of your house and costs nothing to observe you have to go take a look. As it so happened this was the day the amateur cyclists had their ride which took off 4 or 5 hours before the pros, and one of those amateurs happened to be my brother Dave. I rolled out of bed at 6:15 and headed out to Gorge Rd to witness the procession, I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting but in the sea of 8000 identically attired amateurs it dawned on me that spotting my brother might be rather difficult. Fortunately he made my job a whole lot easier when he decided to pull over to the side of the road for a “pitstop” not 15 metres from where I was standing. With my camera. You’re not human if you don’t take this chance to reel off a few photos, how often do you get the opportunity to pap your brother taking a leak in public while wearing lycra? Not often, and when you do it’s kind of an unwritten law to post it on the internet.
We like to call him Shameless Dave – actually, I just made that up.
This was probably the best of a bad bunch of photos of the pros coming through, a combination of some guy standing right in my frame (I’ve cropped him out on the right) and attempting to use a flash but underestimating the speed they’d be coming through at led to disappointing results – can’t win them all though and I learned plenty from my mistakes.
Huge kudos to all the amateurs, especially this last guy, 130k through hills is a long way and I know for a fact he made to the end as friends of mine at the finish line saw him cross. When the ad told me to see the real super heroes this is who I was looking for.
Illustration copyright Robin Eley
