Freebies

I love freebies. Perhaps because I am a tightwad at heart.

I got a great freebie the other day. Two silver tickets to the Bledisloe Cup this Saturday night!

A friend here at work one them in a raffle and couldn’t make it. So I am the beneficiery of his double-booked diary.

Adri and I will be heading to ANZ stadium tomorrow night, and at least one of us are looking forward to the All Blacks getting smashed by the Wallabies!

(Then home in time to watch Cadel take out the TT in le Tour! It will be a great night to be Australian!)

le Tour Update

Big night in le tour last night. 2 uncategorised climbs and lots of people still in the hunt for le maillot jaune.

Cadel hung on strong for the whole stage. He finished in the second group with the rest of the contenders.

Frank Schleck maintains his slender lead, whilst Menchov and Vendevelde lost a lot of valuable time. Unless they can pull something special out tonight, they could be gone. this is good news for Cadel.

A spectacular crash from the young South African – Augustyn. He tumbled down an almost sheer, shale hillside after winning the big climb.

If Cadel can stay in touch with Schleck this evening, he should be well placed to take the prize in the final time trial.

Tonight is huge. The riders will finish high atop l’Alpe d’Huez. It will be exciting.

Check out the action here.

J’adore le Tour de France!

I have been loving le Tour de France this year.

Cycling is a hard sport to get into:

• It has complex scoring and strategies,
• It is long and, at times, uneventful,
• It is dominated by Europeans with hard to pronounce names, and
• It is on late at night.

But the much anticipated success of Aussie Cadel Evans of the Silence Lotto team, combined with the fact that I am now riding to work on a semi-regular basis, means that I am now keen enough on the sport to overcome these minor hurdles.

I have fallen asleep on the couch a couple of nights this week (much to Adri’s disappointment) and I am now talking enthusiastically with friends and colleagues about what has happened in the previous nights racing.

If you are not into cycling, I still recommend you give le Tour a crack for the following reasons:

1. To expand your French vocabulary – how else will you learn words like maillot jaune, tete de la course, peleton and hors categorie?
2. To pick up a few tasty French recipes from Gabriel Gaté in his “Taste le Tour” segment.
3. To cheer on Cadel Evans! He is only the 5th Aussie to wear the maillot jaune in le Tour and he has a great chance of being the first ever Aussie to win the general classification. It is your patriotic duty to get behind him.

If you want to get into it, but you’re not sure where to start, check out the SBS Tour website. It is packed with cool videos and previews of the stages. Very informative.

Are you a fan of le Tour? What is your favourite aspect?