During my visit to the tour I handed over a shiny Euro and received a little yellow bracelet. This is sold on behalf of Lance Armstrong’s Wear Yellow Live Strong campaign which benefits cancer sufferers all around the world. Its amazing how many of these yellow bands you can spot it you’re watching the tour. The Lance Armstrong Foundation has a very interesting site, which gives information, including support for people and thier families who are living with cancer.
After the first of serious climb of the tour, Stage 12: 197.5 km Castelsarrasin to La Mongie, US postal are back in charge. Although Basso won the stage, Armstrong’s second place has pushed him within touching distance of the race yellow jersey Thomas Voeckler, who incidentally has shown himself more than worthy of wearing yellow.
Photos above taken with my new camera, a Nikon Coolpix 3200.
Had a fantastic weekend watching stages 7 and 8. Spent a great afternoon in St Brieuc on the barriers, with a grand parade of cycling through the ages, followed by the publicity caravan, throwing out caps, badges and coffee sachets… then a couple of hours later, as the atmosphere started to hot up, the team cars and commissaires vehicles, followed by the riders themselves, gunning at great speed up the final kilometre from la flame rouge. The stage was won by Pozzato from Fassa Bortolo, a young rider announcing himself on his first tour.
The next day, after a peaceful morning and a quick look at the map, we went to L’Enseigne Verte, which is a fourth category climb a few kilometres east of Briec. The turnout was amazing, much more than we had anticipated, with camping cars lining the route up to the summit. Although St-Brieuc had been great, the atmosphere at the roadside was much more intense. As the team cars sped through on thier way the finish, the helicopters hovered overhead and the sound from the crowd was getting louder and louder. Suddenly I whipped my hand from the road as the riders brushed past, quickly followed a few seconds later by the peloton. My heart was racing as they vanished out of sight.
After the hustle and bustle of the opening days, including a great time trial victory for the young swiss rider Fabian Cancellara , who broke down in tears when Armstrong crossed over a second behind; a couple of sprints more notable for the absence on the podium of Alessandro Petacchi; and after the drama of Iban Mayo falling on the cobblestones amid the dust and mayhem usually enjoyed by the Paris-Roubaix…after all of that, we have Lance Armstrong in yellow and some of his rivals a long way off the classification. Really, I forgot this wasn’t just any bike race.
The Tour de France Blog is back for another year, with all the news from the race.
BBC Sport providing some beautiful photos – especially of stage 3 on the cobbles.
Graham Watson has been covering the tour since 1977 and takes some amazing photos.
Its here at last, after months of waiting, the big guys are on their way to Paris over 3,388 kilometre, along some of France’s most beautiful scenery, up mountains and along the flat. This promises to be a great race. Lance Armstrong is gunning for a record 6th Tour win.
Over the next three weeks I’ll try to put as much up as i can, any links I find, some photos, some times, and comments. Please send me your stuff. Comments box is open for business.
We are going over for two stages this weekend in Quimper and I’ll take some photos. Here we go…
Its not gone un-noticed that Dots and Spaces has been neglecting its duties in terms of bringing you interesting bits of design to add to the clutter (of life). So I thought I’d address this, with a mention of Patent Pending Industries who are a print firm that do lots of cover art and posters for Subpop and the like, coving bands like Stephen Malkmus, The Hives, Belle and Sebastien etc. The designs that first caught my eye come from Jesse LeDoux, and this was after seeing a great cover for Hot Hot Heat’s Bandages. In fact, all the PPI designs are first class. There’s lots of Saul Bass influences in the poster work. The great thing is that the sum of the information comunicated is negligible to the overall effect created. I mean, they don’t just tell you which band is playing, they give you the feeling you’re already watching them…still with me?
I feel a Saul Bass entry coming on…
Bad news about David Milar. Apparently he was called for questioning following allegations that he had passed syringes containing EPO to a fellow rider. Under Tour rules, any cyclist involved with investigations will not be admitted. I hope that David will be given the all clear, and that he’ll be able to race in Athens. He has a singularly independent view of cycling, and life, and I’m hoping that nothing will come of these enquiries.
Great Interview with Tyler Hamilton in today’s Guardian.
Leaving for stages 7 and 8 next week – will try to put up a few tour links in the meantime.
Well, its taken me all week, I got some photos back today, but they don’t really give you a feeling of the whole event. We stayed in Sidcup the night before, then caught the train to Waterloo, delayed for half an hour, so got the start gate at Clapham Common to find that we were some of the last riders to leave. My start card got stamped, then we were on our way, weaving through the traffic to rejoin the bulk of the riders. We must have left around 10.30am and after about an hour we were in the thick of it, with bikes all around us. The weather seemed to be fine for the first couple of hours as we left London, but as we crossed the M25, the clouds gathered and the rain started to fall. I remember being held up for a moment as an ambulance weaved its way through us and we passed a nasty accident at the bottom of hill, a blood stained road and the tangle of broken bikes. We stopped for a banana and put our waterproofs on, then we set off into the Sussex countryside. Another stop around 2pm at Ardingly, and we bought cake and drinks from the local Cubs and Brownies that had set up a tent at the stop. The weather was still unsettled, but we pushed on. There was a real carnival atmosphere to the ride, we were greeted in one village by a brass band, and the support from the public was great. There were all sorts of bikes to see, Tandems, Recumbents, Postman and Delivery bikes, and even Choppers. I got a few compliments on the Claude Butler. It all seemed to go very smoothly, only pausing for the Police to let traffic pass, forming huge queues of bikes that stretched for miles. Finally, when we reached Ditchling later in the afternoon, the sunshine came out and the downs loomed above us. My legs felt good and I started up the hill passed the walkers and slower riders, the road started to stretch up and get steeper, but we carried on up. As my muscles started to burn I thought I’d only last until the next corner, but then I chanced a few more yards, then more and finally I could see the summit and pushed on. Getting to the top gave me a great sense of accomplishment, the training had really paid off. The rains started again as we made our way down to Brighton. The crowds that greeted us along the seafront were amazing, and there was a great feeling of relief and pride as we crossed the finish line.
Statistics for London to Brighton
-Average Speed – 11.2mph (not bad considering some of the hold ups)
-Distance – 62.4 miles (from Clapham tube to Hove)
-Max Speed – 43mph (down from Ditchling to Stansted Park)
-Time on the bike – 5hrs 8 mins (6hrs overall including cake stops)
So..last of all – Thanks to everyone who sponsored me, we raised £318 – This is fantastic, more than I ever hoped, so feel proud of yourselves – Everyone who sponsored me will get a little thank you in the next couple of weeks.
I had a great time and who knows…I might do it again…
Had a wonderful day at Wimbledon on Tuesday, very lucky to see any play as Wednesday’s play was completely abandoned. Finally arrived at around midday and went to our seats on Centre Court to watch Serena Williams cruise her way into the second round. There’s so much to take in when you look around; Venus and Richard Williams in the player’s box, Alan Mills with his walkie talkie patrolling the area behind the court, the whole business of centre court is fascinating. After a short break to watch Tim Henman on the big screen and munch our sandwiches, we went back to watch another couple of games, have a wander around the outside courts, where you’re so close to the action as to feel you’re intruding somehow. We had the biggest serving of Pimms I’ve ever had, and had our photos taken in front of Fred Perry’s statue. The great thing about your tickets is that the seat is yours all day and you can come and go as you want to. We had a busy time in the shop and waved at Greg Rusedski as he walked across the gangway from Centre Court to the new Millennium Pavilion. When we finally left, it felt as if we’d seen all that we’d hoped to see, even the sight of the groundstaff pulling on the covers was a treat.
Ohmigod – we’re travelling up to London ready for Sunday morning – my start time is 9.30am and hopefully I’ll be sitting on the beach sometime in the afternoon. There’s a nice blog called Jake’s rides and he links to this profile. Hopefully it should give you some idea of the ride. I’ve been doing a few 25 mile rides and Neil and I went out for a good cycle on Thursday night, so I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.
So, thank’s for all your kind words and sponsorship – so far I’ve raised a total of £282.35 and there’s a couple more that I’ve got to add offline. Thank you.
I’ll put some photos up and let you know how it goes… just give me a chance to recover.
Yes I know, the only obvious title I could think of, and its quite fitting that I’m going with Brynn to watch the action on Centre Court on Tuesday. Still no order of play at Wimbledon.org, but there are lots of tips at the Guardian’s Wimbledon mini-site. I think we’ll stroll in about an hour before play, take some lunch with us and enjoy the games. Hopefully the weather will hold out – the forecast isn’t great, but hopefully there’ll be some play between interuptions. In any case, its my first trip, and I’m so lucky to get tickets in the draw. Photos and entry to follow.
