rsyncing as root when root login is disabled?

[Joe Ruby]

I'm trying to do a simple rsync:

rsync -av admin at mydomain.com:/backup .

But a number of files in /backup are readable only by
root, and hence rsync gives these errors:

sync: send_files failed to open
"/backup/etc/mail/virtusertable.db": Permission denied
(13)

Since root login is disabled, I can't simple do
'root at mydomain.com'. I searched a bit and saw this:

rsync -av --rsync-path='sudo path'
admin at mydomain.com:/backup .

I tried it -- rsync asks for my password, but then
doesn't output anything after many minutes (after
which I kill it).

So, how can I rsync files from my remote server so all
the files are readable and the existing permissions
get preserved (e.g. not having to do 'chmod -R a+r
/backup'.

Thanks,
Joe

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