Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Saalfelden City Grand Prix

An odd thing happened on the way to our Austrian home today: The road was blocked off. As it turns out, it was because of the Saalfelden City Grand Prix, which is a professional bicycle race held right in downtown Saalfelden, where we have our home. So we had to leave the car at a supermarket parking lot and made the rest on foot. In return however, we got an exciting race to watch right from our window.

I have actually seen this race before (it has been an annual thing for the recent years), but it amazes me again every time. It is almost unbelievable how quick these guys go through the narrow downtown roads, some asphalt, some cobble stone. Lots of tight corners. I even walked around for a while to see different areas of the track and wanted to take some pictures, but I forgot the memory card of my camera. So I ended up taking a picture right from our place. Not the most spectacular spot of the track, but anyway:

While this is not the Tour de France, it is still a pretty spectacular race. I am not sure that all the guys are professional cyclists, but a good number of them are. Quite a number of countries and teams had riders here. This was fun. Very cool...