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The 2013 Tour Down Under will include a grass start for the very first time, with the stage four route to Tanunda chosen.
The lush lawn of Civic Park in Modbury is the setting for this unique race beginning, and how the peloton handle it will be of great interest to most observers.
Before the pros have their go on the grass, 7,000 amateur cyclists entered to ride the Bupa Challenge Tour will start their race taking off on the lawn.
Anyone that has ever witnessed the start of one of these Tours knows they are pandemonium, so with the added level of difficulty due to the unusual surface, expect some entertaining viewing.
I was keen to know just how hard it was to ride a road bike on the grass, so Samara and I decided we’d sneak onto a local golf course and give it a shot.
The feeling of riding with those skinny tyres on grass is a little off-putting, and even though we were on the fairly short grass of a fairway, it felt as if our tyres were sinking into the grass and our control diminished.
The pros will still be in the neutral zone, so expect them to leave in an orderly fashion and stay relatively trouble free, but it will be every man, woman and child for themselves as the Bupa Tour gets under way.
Knowing this, we picked up the tempo in our test and found that going for it makes things even harder.
I was lucky enough to choose a path that had a small patch of sand, and as I rolled over the top my front tyre sunk in, stopping all the momentum of my bike. My body however didn’t stop and I went down in an ugly mess as I didn’t even have time to unclip my shoes.
I landed hard on my saddle and got a mouthful of sand. I will give the grass one thing, the landing was softer than the bitumen I’m used to falling over on, but nothing can break the fall of your pride – imagine that in front of 7,000 other riders!
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