Pre-Stage Chat with Cadel, George and Matty

(If you do one thing– watch the video at the bottom)

I’ve gotta be hon­est here. After all — that’s what a blog is all about right?

Two weeks ago I would never have ima­gined even com­ing to the Tour Down Under, let alone inter­view­ing some of the biggest names in the sport.

Jamie Ford from CSN and myself, spon­tan­eously wandered amongst the team cars prior to Stage One. At first we felt like a couple of pro­trud­ing sore thumbs, but after a while I mustered the cour­age to ask for an interview.

Umm, excuse me Cadel…

Straight to the top I say. It was the shortest inter­view know to man but hey, I had the balls to do it — that’s the main thing.

Johan Bruyneel was next and then sud­denly I found myself on a role. Baden Cooke, Neil Stevens, Mathew White, Brad­ley McGee, Graeme Brown followed*.

My major learn for the day was — if you’re going to inter­view people, have ques­tions prepared.

The other major learn, was that these guys are just nor­mal people like you and I. They’re approach­able and want to tell their story just like every­body else.

They just get har­assed a hell of a lot more often.

This makes me reflect on the local racing scene. It doesn’t mat­ter where you live, there’s a peck­ing order — a heir­achy among the grades — a wank factor that’s com­pletely unnecessary.

From my exper­i­ence, rarely do elite, A-graders or cat­egory 1 riders mingle with the lesser grades. They sit in their little groups at the cof­fee shop, or get together for a group ride exclud­ing any­one who can’t hold their wheel. That’s a shame because so many skills and tips can be passed on to riders aspir­ing to make that cut.

Now it’s late, and I may be get­ting all soppy after one too many red wines from press room wine bar, but where’s the love!!

Any­way, here’s the video. I’ve included foot­age with Cadel, Hin­capie and Whitey and I’ll save the rest for next time. As you all suf­fer from ADD, I’ve tried to keep the movie at 2 minutes.

Although Andre Greipel won today’s stage, the big news of the day was Alan Davis (Astana) — the win­ner from last year — get­ting spat on Men­glers hill.

Our Inter­viewees from last night, Jonathan Can­t­well and David Kemp (UniSA) also came in with the Davis group some 8’22″ behind the bunch.

We’ll inter­view those guys tomor­row and see what happened. We also want to speak with young Timothy Roe. Word on the street has it, he may move over to Radi­oshack next year. Just another day on the rumor mill.

Keep pos­ted on Cyc­ling Maven for the latest updates and insight form inside the media vans of the TDU.

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