I just happened to be driving past Cannes in the south of France and I knew the Tristar Cannes triathlon was taking place with Jenson Button and a few other top racing drivers entered to compete...
Pretty soon somebody I recognised showed up on his bicycle...
It was formula one race car driver Lucas Di Grassi! With his as-actually-used-in-the-Tour-de-France bicycle.
Lucas told me he was enjoying his current role, test driver for Bridgestone Formula One tyres. He also told me Jenson Button was the only driver competing in the longer 111 km triathlon which had already started, and that he, Alex and Nico would be competing in the shorter 55.5 km event due to start later.
And then I told Lucas about my trading up and wondered if he'd like to trade something for my drinks bottle, to which Lucas, after asking all about how it works, said sure, he'd trade me his cycling gloves! His first cycling gloves actually, which he had owned for 5 years (since his days at Renault Formula One team he told me), and which he had used A LOT.
So I would find him at the finish line and we'd do the trade.
Lucky for me the event organisers Tristar organised me with a media pass which enabled me to be right at the finish line, so that's where I went later and waited as one by one competitors finished, some looking a lot more triumphant than others! Jenson Button would not be a finisher, he didn't even start because didn't want to risk falling off his bicycle in the wet... I guess... so there'd be no trade with him.
The first racing driver I spotted finishing was Alex Wurz. I had actually been a spectator at the Canadian Grand Prix in 1997, his Formula One debut, and again at Canadian Grand Prix in 1998 when he finish a very decent 4th place after this drama...
After he'd sorted himself out with refreshments I introduced myself, and was a littled surprised that he remembered me from twitter! And then, with the world champion's watch in mind (would be good to trade it to a world champion) I asked him if he'd ever been a world champion at anything? he said yes, BMX biking! (no, I didn't see that coming...) so then I asked if he'd like to trade me something for the watch, to which he replied...
No, you are trading nothing so I want you to trade me nothing, and he traded me his cap and just-earned medal for nothing...
Thanks Alex!
Alex finished 30th out of around 300 I believe, not tooooo bad... so he should be in good shape to race the Toyota Hybrid in the Le Mans 24 hours, coming soon.
Then a little later Lucas finished and suggested I tag along till he could get to his bike, which turned out to be much longer than he expected so he left the scene for a while... but it worked out, I found Lucas leaving the bicycle park later and we did the trade...
Lucas traded me his cycling gloves plus his ID belt, thanks and obrigado Lucas!
As for Nico Rosberg, well he didn't have such a successful day. First he forgot his ID tag and was disqualified for that (shhh it's not that that funny!) then because it was wet he used his mountain bike...
... and after a puncture enough was enough, he quit!
I really didn't want to ask him if he'd like to trade with me after all that!
Here's Nico's video blog about his enjoyable day out...
All in all an excellent fun day even without the two awesome trades.
Whilst Writing this post I realised that I have lost track of the trades, I need to get things back in order so that I know where I am and you know where I am and they know where I am.
