Tour Down Under

classic1 said:

In any case, its too early in the year to have a super tough route and is too farkin hot in SA in January. If the route was harder no europeans would come.

Good point.

We often get mixed up with what we want to see and what the teams want to do this time of year.

classic1 said:

Is there any truth that he will be reverting to Aussie citizenship?

Haussler said he wants to ride for Australia C1

classic1 said:

If the route was harder no europeans would come.

They have to come. Paying all that money to the UCI/ProTour gained them the benefit of being forced to do races they may not want to do.

Next year onward to China--in December.

🙄

Bro Deal said:

They have to come. Paying all that money to the UCI/ProTour gained them the benefit of being forced to do races they may not want to do.

Next year onward to China--in December.

🙄

The Protour should be organic.

Unfortunatley there are limitations.

1. Calendar is full.
2. Southern v Northern Hemisphere seasons (weather)
3. Times Zones (v N America) - jet lag.

South Africa is about the only country that could do something wortwhile besides the US. The US is limited by the full calendar, and by the jet lag, takes a few extra days out of the calendar. Sou' Hemisphere + Time Zones for Australia, render any potential racing from Protour teams impotent.

Protour Races should not be PT races if they are impotent. They should be strong races.

limerickman said:

Good to see the TDU get ProTour status : given the number of Aussies who have won major races over the last 2 decades.

Re: 2008 TDU route - like others here, I would like to see the route contain some climbs.
Having said that, I'm not familiar enough with Oz geography to suggest a modified route that could take in more climbs.

As others have suggested here , I'd have to go for an overall Aussie winner and I think that winner will be O'Grady.
Kiss of death : Stuey.

Thats as mounainous as it gets in Adelaide😄. I wouldn't have thought that the riders would want big mountains this early, especially coupled with the heat.
I will be checking out stage 0. They used the same course previosly but they went the other way around. In Adelaide at the moment pretty much all racing is crits and track, all the fast stuff, so the crowds should be good for this race as well as the last stage.
Mike Turter was on the ABC (radio) during the week and was asked why the big names were not here. His answer was that because the TDU only recieved PT status in Sept. it was to soon for the teams to re-arrange their riders' roster. The other point he made was that it has taken 10 years to get this far and it will probably take another 10 to get the big names down to Adelaide. Doesn't bother me, just to see the "B Grade" riders is good enough. It may be different for the European based spectators.🙂 You can check out Adelaides "big" climbs here http://www.cycle2max.com/c2m/c2max.nsf/docid/16AD4112F6F1396FE925717C00315AD7?OpenDocument

leestevens said:

Mike Turter was on the ABC (radio) during the week and was asked why the big names were not here. His answer was that because the TDU only recieved PT status in Sept. it was to soon for the teams to re-arrange their riders' roster. The other point he made was that it has taken 10 years to get this far and it will probably take another 10 to get the big names down to Adelaide. Doesn't bother me, just to see the "B Grade" riders is good enough. It may be different for the European based spectators.🙂

[censored]. Teenage mutant ninja Turter is full of [censored].

The reason they aren't here is because they can't be fagged spending 23 hours on a plane to ride a training race at the [censored] end of the world in the sweltering heat.

classic1 said:

[censored]. Teenage mutant ninja Turter is full of [censored].

The reason they aren't here is because they can't be fagged spending 23 hours on a plane to ride a training race at the [censored] end of the world in the sweltering heat.

The only world class event australia will get is Geelong in 2 years time.

Could be good.

Cooke, Evans, Walker, Wilson, Gerrans, maybe even Simon Clarke as home town riders. 15 mins from Evans house.

Likely team,

Davis
Cooke
Evans
Walker W
Haussler
Gerrans
Goss
Rogers

bubble
Renshaw
Hansen
Sutton
Hayman
Wilson Matt (Trent can blow his own bubbles)
Ogrady (should not be there, but the selectors are soft on the old champions like Mcewen and Ogrady, Mcewen should have never been at Athens)
Sutherland
Sulberger W
S Clarke (not Hilts or Jonno)
Lapthorne
C Meyer
Mcgee
Lloyd

tt outsiders
Wurf
Day
Oneil
etc

anyone know of the Richie Poite or whatever his name is. Unkown Tasmanian. How many heads?

thunder said:

The only world class event australia will get is Geelong in 2 years time.

TDU has world class organisation. Even regular visitors to Europe reckon its org is as good as it gets. The F1 GP in Adelaide was the same.

The prestige of tdu will never be up there though.

classic1 said:

TDU has world class organisation. Even regular visitors to Europe reckon its org is as good as it gets. The F1 GP in Adelaide was the same.

The prestige of tdu will never be up there though.

I should have specified the sporting side, which is what I meant.

World class re: performance.

TDU is a training and tanning event, not necessarily in that order. Salvatore Commesso and Cipo sans shirtsleeves :d

Quoted post said:

Mike Turter was on the ABC (radio) during the week and was asked why the big names were not here. His answer was that because the TDU only recieved PT status in Sept. it was to soon for the teams to re-arrange their riders' roster.

Mike Turtur
“We planned to be a UCI ProTour race in 2009. Yet when we were in Italy in >>>August 2007,<<< we were asked if we could accommodate the UCI in organising the Tour Down Under as a UCI ProTour event in 2008."

lucybears said:

Mike Turtur
“We planned to be a UCI ProTour race in 2009. Yet when we were in Italy in >>>August 2007,<<< we were asked if we could accommodate the UCI in organising the Tour Down Under as a UCI ProTour event in 2008."

Mamma mia, that says it all. UCI asking an organiser a few months before the event to organise a PT race.

Oh well. I guess this way the UCI can say that it has balanced out the departure of the three European GTs from the ProTour calendar.

N.B. This is not meant as a disrespect to the TDU, but as others have said, it will never be a major event on the calendar.

Powerful Pete said:

Mamma mia, that says it all. UCI asking an organiser a few months before the event to organise a PT race.

Oh well. I guess this way the UCI can say that it has balanced out the departure of the three European GTs from the ProTour calendar.

N.B. This is not meant as a disrespect to the TDU, but as others have said, it will never be a major event on the calendar.

It might be a major event if enough Euro events cease to exist and they reschedule it sometime April to August. Australian winters aren't that cold, especially in April. Always going to struggle with the jet lag thing though.

Crankyfeet said:

It might be a major event if enough Euro events cease to exist and they reschedule it sometime April to August. Australian winters aren't that cold, especially in April. Always going to struggle with the jet lag thing though.

Fair enough. But I would hope (in spite of the UCI's efforts at globalisation) that we do not attempt to dump the Tour, Giro and Vuelta for the TDU, Tour of California and some kind of China Tour. 🙄

I continune to be annoyed by the fact that they moved the Vuelta in the calendar to suit their own needs. Ugh.

Tour Down Under Competition 2008

tdu2008.cyclingfever.compuntencompetitie.htmlOpen ↗

Special Coverage Tour Down Under 2008

(Stage profiles, maps, riders diary Heinrich Haussler, news, race reports & more)
cyclingheroes.infoid1119.htmlOpen ↗

Day 1 Riders diary Heinrich Haussler: "Tommorrows Down Under Classic will be the first race."
cyclingheroes.infoid1131.htmlOpen ↗

Day 2 Riders diary Heinrich Haussler: "I felt really good and I hope I will even get better."
cyclingheroes.infoid1137.htmlOpen ↗

[left]Greipel takes Tour Down Under Classic[/left]
[left]cyclingheroes.infoid1134.htmlOpen ↗[/left]

Excellent stuff CH

It must have been so anticlimatic for the Rabobank riders; after working so hard and setting up Greame Brown, he finished like 17th?

Powerful Pete said:

Fair enough. But I would hope (in spite of the UCI's efforts at globalisation) that we do not attempt to dump the Tour, Giro and Vuelta for the TDU, Tour of California and some kind of China Tour. 🙄

I continune to be annoyed by the fact that they moved the Vuelta in the calendar to suit their own needs. Ugh.

What you have to realize is that the UCI wants a global tour.