Our Tour, in the middle of our street

[Felicity, I guess so]

Greetings Earthlings, after a long summer offline/awa' I awake to find the otf peloton represented solely by a cycling porn thread.

I for one am enjoying the Vuelta (more later perhaps) but thought I'd share my delight at finding the Tour of Britain is a) having a stage round here which covers roads I often ride
and b) is due to pass the end of our road sometime friday morning!

Not quite as cool as kuhsek on the old board being able to lean out his window and touch Bettini's arse (...or something like that anyway) nor, of course, quite ursus arctos' regular front row seat for the Giro conclusion, but hey-I'm chuffed.

If only Euskaltel were in it, I could go kitted out. Too busy leading the Vuelta...

[Me Old Flower]

Our Tour, in the middle of our street

The old Kellogg's Tour of Britain and Leeds Classic used to pass fairly close to where I grew up when the organisers felt like putting in a nasty ascent (i.e Holme Moss). A great time for local cycling and probably what got me into road racing from an early age.

Tomorrow's stage 5 (Thursday) passes through East and North Yorkshire, and the final climbs in Dalby Forest will make for an interesting finish. I'd love to be there.

[Guest]

Our Tour, in the middle of our street

The TOB came down my road last year, they've dropped Taunton this time though as the shop owners complained about the town being shut down for the day.

We stood around outside the house for ages while all manner of cars came by, then they whizzed past over the course of a few minutes and we had absolutely no idea whether they were doing well and that was it. A few kids came by on BMXs and the crowd clapped them as well, it was all a bit strange and patronising.

[Guest]

Our Tour, in the middle of our street

When it was called the Milk race, it used to come to Nottingham and race around the 4 roads that surrounded the Council House and Market Square.

All the surrounding roads were blocked off, bus routes diverted and bales of hay placed around the kerbside.

Due to the acute angles of the corners, there were some spectacular crashes, notably on the short down hill section and the left hand turn at the bottom of it.

This will never happen again here, as the market square has been completely revamped and now only has a road on 2 sides and we have a tram that runs through it now.

But it was good when it came and the weather always seemed to be good (one of those rose tinted memories I think!).

[Third rate Leszno]

Our Tour, in the middle of our street

Could've watched from our back bedroom with a pair of bino's yesterday, but chose to wander up to the main road and watch close up instead. Can't help wondering what the policing cost must be, there had to be 30+ police motorbikes plus several cars and vans.







One of these years I'm going to have to hire a campervan and follow a big race around for a few days.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Our Tour, in the middle of our street

OK, so it was a bit of an anti-climax after all the expectation. I rode around on the morning of the event scouting for photo locations, and the ideal one in Walker, near my house (at the top of a little steep rise, with a backdrop of semi-demolished shipyard cranes) was removed from the route at the last minute.

I guess they wanted to minimize sharp turns in the wet conditions. As it happens we went to the finish line instead, got soaked, and missed the Petacchi surge for the line, as larger people intervened.

The only good bits were a) seeing how ropey the glamour podium girls looked in the flesh
b) seeing Petacchi and Di Luca slumming it on the podium and
3) [copyright Gavin & Stacey] heckling the E-On exec who was presenting the King of Mountains jersey. I loudly demanded a windfall tax, to general support/amusement.

Seeing the highlights later on, Caccia, the Barloworld rider who crashed while in the breakaway, hit the deck passing Whitley Bay caravan park, which is on my regular 25-mile route. Which was nice. Except for him.