on a borrowed bike at the Tour Down Under….
Today’s race started with a lot of nervous legs. It was a big day for GC, and there was a big crash with 20k to go. Everyone is nervous at the bottom of corkscrew, the final climb and unfortunately there was a bit of a pile up. I tumbled up into the rocks a bit, and my foot was stuck in the rocks. (upside down)
I got up from the crash, the team checked my bike and everything seemed ok, so the car moved back to the front to help the guys further up the road. At about 5k later I noticed the derailleur on my bike was completely broken.
There were two fans on the side of the road, and they came to my rescue. They asked me what size I was and was quickly offered a bike from one of them! I didn’t ride the same pedals he rides so we couldn’t swap over so he gave me his shoes as well. (luckily we have similar sized feet) He went to the end of the race in the sag wagon for me. In 14 years as a professional this was the first time I’ve ever had this experience.
The bike that got Tyler to the line
I couldn’t stop saying thank you over and over again. He saved my tour. I really didn’t want to come to Australia to do 2.5 days of racing. It’s a pretty cool look into how nice people in Australia are.
He’s gonna love his new Strava record on corkscrew now. Thanks man!
Words: Tyler Farrar
The hero fan is Anthony, @pushiefiend on instagram, and the team has very happily given him a full set of team kit for his valiant sacrifice.
