Читать книгу My World онлайн

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My first race as a professional was the Tour Down Under in 2010. I’d never been to Adelaide before, but I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with Australia. Four months earlier I had raced at the 2009 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships in the nation’s capital, Canberra, where I took fourth in the U23 men category. I loved the heat of Adelaide in January, riding out every day in shorts and a jersey without having to worry about arm warmers or the like. It’s another country with its own distinctive smell. Eucalyptus, or gum trees, as the locals say. If I catch a scent of that anywhere in the world, I’m transported back to sunny days in the southern hemisphere, those hot days where the earth seems to be flattened by the heat from above.

It’s a gentle race to do, too. As well as the weather, there are no long transfers between stages, no packing your bag every day, and a nice hotel that the whole race is staying at. As with any career, there are tedious parts to life as a pro cyclist. Somehow, during the Tour Down Under, those elements are less apparent. As I’ve grown older, I’ve appreciated the laid-back nature of Australians in general, too. Nothing is too much of a problem. They have a look in their eyes that seems to say: Why so serious?