Category: Le Tour

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…

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…

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.

Latest update from the Giro d’italia – The long awaited fight between Petacchi and Cipollini hasn’t really surfaced yet. When Petacchi won the first of the five stages he’s won, Cipo pulled up, claiming he’d been blocked, and then pulled out a few stages later after a crash. Currently, Cunego leads from his lieutentant Simoni, who looks favourite to win overall, and go on to challenge Lance in the Tour later in July. Tension is definatly hotting up, there are so many riders coming to the front, including Ullrich, Hamilton and Vinokorov. There don’t seem to be many great links to the Giro, here we go – BBC sport cycling, Official site, Cycling News, any others, please let me know.

London to Brighton Flyer click here

Tonight I purchased a pair of Conit Sport Contact Tyres so that when I’m out on the road I won’t hear the buzzing sound as I strip the tarmac. They have a strange wishy line that goes through the centre of the tyre. As usual I got it from wiggle. I was a bit confused about tyre sizes (and still am basically). I have 700 x 38c on at the moment, and didn’t know what i could use, but an email to the kind people at wiggle helped me out. They are so friendly, even wished me luck on my ride. I’m thinking of rating companies by their helpfulness, it often goes hand in hand with efficiency, and honest prices.

Went up to Brum for the Bike Show, and although this is the first time I’ve been, I have to admit to coming away a little dissapointed. Sure there was lots to see, especially with the trails show and the vert ramp, but there were some big names missing, and the bias seemed to be towards BMX and Mountain Bike. Nevermind, picked up lots of stickers and catalogues that I’ll probably pop into the recycling bin on Monday.