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Hey there, or should I say “How ya goin’?”

This is The Girl, writing to you for the DC Rainmaker weekly newsletter. Newsletter HQ has been temporarily relocated to the southern hemisphere, where we are wrapping up the first week of our  DC Rainmaker Tour Down Under- family edition. If our trip down south for the big bike race is news to you, or this is your first time reading the Newsletter, then you are way behind- go HERE to catch up on past newsletters and Ray gossip!

Now, on with the show!

Now in case you didn’t understand me earlier, we are here in Adelaide, Southern Australia checking out the Tour Down Under! So you know all of the blog posts from this week are going to be TDU focused! So far Ray has been running around creeping on the riders’ tech gear! It’s amazing how I could likely dye my hair blue and Ray wouldn’t notice, yet a bike blows past him at 40km/hr and Ray will furrow his brow and say to me “that’s a new bike computer”. I wouldn’t have even been able to tell you the color of the bike it went by that fast! So if you’re interested in some bike tech eye candy check out both the women and men’s posts! As well, if you’re at home following the race and want a better way to track the riders, check out this post on the latest Satalyst Tracker system.

Now, once you’re done clicking all of those links, keep on scrolling down for your favorite part of the newsletter J Haha, I know I’m wearing you down! You people used to come by just for your fix of technology goodness, now you’re craving the terrible humor of little ol’ me. 

When Ray asked what readers wanted to see from CES this year, several of you commented about the Mio SLICE and the current status of its availability.  I had the…

Of the 19 men’s teams at the Tour Down Under this year, one stands apart from the rest.  No, not because they’ve got super stars on the team.  Nor because…

After the women’s debut on Saturday, it was time for the men to make their entrance on Sunday at the People’s Choice criterium.  This would be the first men’s race…

There are many great aspects of the Santos Tour Down Under, from the fan-inclusive activities, to the stage structure.  Non-locals may not realize for example that the teams all actually…

In Depth Thoughts from the Girl

Gidday, thanks for making your way down here. As you know, we are having a time down here in Australia! Enjoying the bike races, the sunshine, beach walks, you name it. Since the temperatures have been a factor and the race days can be quite long, the Peanut and I have been a bit picky about what stages we cheer for and which days we stay put at the hotel for some pool time. Since the men’s race kicked off with a Crit event it was easy to pop on the tram from the beach and meet Ray in town just in time for the start!

We spent the best part of Tuesday hanging out in a nearby town that was suggested to us, Hahndorf. You might decipher from the name that it has some German to it, and that’s because it’s Australia’s oldest German settlement. We took a few hours and had lunch, poked around a few cute shops, and of course frequented a local ice creamery. Very cute little town in the Adelaide Hills, and the hills are an important detail to note here. These are in fact the same hills that Ray went cycling in the other morning when he saw koala bears! With Ray’s new found enthusiasm for koala sightings he decided that he wanted to take the Peanut on her first self-drive koala safari. So up and down the mountain side I did my very best to withhold the regurgitation of my lunch and loving noted ice cream as we searched for the fuzzy little bear. The question did occur to me as we cornered another switchback, do Australian’s get excited when they see a koala bear? Like, do they slow down when driving through a eucalyptus forest to search, or is that the same as wondering if Americans slow down while driving to look for squirrels?

We finally finished up that day at the race track back down in Adelaide. The women cyclist were set to finish up their Tour there with a crit stage. When we arrived, there were all kinds of festivities happening on the track like a Brompton bike race.

Ray was running about meeting some tech companies, and doing generally whatever it is Ray does at industry things like this. In the meantime the Peanut and I were hanging out scoring free Subaru hats and popsicles! We were both super happy about that!

Once the women were on the start line we headed up to the grand stands and enjoyed the race. It’s really great to see so many people coming out for the women’s stages. The Tour Down Under seems to make a lot of effort to highlight the women riders and their sport. Yeah, there’s not the same kind of money in their race, but I think there’s a big effort there and they are on the right track to making it a bigger and bigger event each year. 100x bigger effort and presence than we see at the Tour de France each year.

With that, I have to go slap on some after sun aloe-vera and call it a night. Thanks for reading.

~The Girl