Why Am I Not Excited?

So professional cycling is back! With a brand spanking new season. Tipped off with the Santos Tour Down Under (That's in Australia. For those of you not in the know.)

So why am I not excited?

I can't figure it out. All the big pro teams were there. The racing was~



 A couple pretty spectacular crashes (Not that I really like looking at those. They just make me cringe and curl up in a ball.)


Like pour Mark Cavendish here in stage 2.

And it was Lance Armstrong's (supposed) final international event. Paul Sherwin and Phil Ligget were in the announcers booth doing the play by play. All should have been right with the world.  But still nothing...

I don't now what my problem is.

Was it the fact that the racing played out as predictably as any flat stage would in the first week of the Tour de France? Could it be that instead of showing some of the truly amazing beauty that Australia has to offer they kept it to very simple urban routes?  And that often times they would do several laps of the same area?  Lulling you into a haze similar to watching the dryer spin round and round at the laundry mat?

I think it was all these plus some. Please don't get me wrong. I'm glad that Australia has a pro tour (Or whatever they are calling it this week.) race. I'm glad to see bigger races in all different parts of the world.  But I think that even the most hardened racing fan would agree that pretty scenery helps the hours of a stage roll by when there isn't anything tactically interesting going on. But when you look at scenery like this~



When you could be seeing stuff like this~




Or this~


It just seems like a serious let down. 

I know that Australia is a huge continent. And that just like a Tour of America it would be a logistical nightmare to try and show all parts of it in a given year. I just wish they could find somewhere to race that the people could still come out and see. And have some of the breathe taking views that I know Australia has a ton of.

Okay. I guess I'm done for know. 

Next stop! Tour of Quatar....



Sweet Jesus get me through to the spring classics!

Rubber side down,

Big E