GERMAN cycling legend Jens Voigt has swigged a beer and been propositioned by a middle-aged man while riding the lonely miles home after shepherding his team leaders to the front of international races.
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Voigt revealed the stories behind some of his rides to a packed audience at Warrnambool’s Mid City Motel on Wednesday night.
He was in town as part of the annual Tour de Cure ride, a 1335-kilometre event that raises millions of dollars for cancer research and support projects. The eight-day ride, from Adelaide to Melbourne, involves 180 riders and a large support crew.
Voigt said one of his funniest memories in Australia was during a stage of the Tour Down Under at South Australia’s Willunga Hill, where three flat sections are followed by two big climbs.
“My job was to deliver my leaders, my team captains, to that last mountain and I did that and I got dropped because I did all my work before,” he said.
“I was riding all alone up there and there’s a group of three or four young men and they’re running up next to me and they’re saying ‘hey Jens, hey mate, have a beer with us’. So they opened the can, handed me the beer and then the race only had three or four minutes to go so I had a sip of the beer and passed it back to them. That’s Australia for you.”
He also spoke about a similar situation in the Tour de France when he used all his effort to help his team leaders reach the front.
“So I’m getting dropped and riding all alone again and suddenly this voice goes ‘Jens, I love you. I want to have your child’. When I look over it’s a 55-year-old man with a belly like that,” he said motioning to a very round stomach.
“Well, I had to ride so fast I nearly fell off my bike. I tried to actually run for the hills.”
Voigt said he was inspired to join the Tour de Cure after hearing about it during one of the 12 Tour Down Under races he participated in. He lost his uncle to cancer about 20 years ago and one of his daughter’s young friends had lost her mother to the disease.
“No child of that age should be forced to see her mum in a graveyard,” Voigt said.
“I hope this is only the first of many more Tour de Cures to come for me.”
The riders arrived in Warrnambool after a 214-kilometre trek from Mount Gambier and set off along the Great Ocean Road for Apollo Bay last night.
They were farewelled during a breakfast on the Civic Green yesterday morning.
