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    Bike vs Baboon

    The Tour of Britain in September will feature an individual time trial around Knowsley Safari Park.

    I'm not sure what the baboons there will make of the bikes and riders, but they'll love the support vehicles


    #2
    Bike vs Baboon

    They had a stage of the race finish there a year or two back - the finish line was right outside the elephant enclosure. (Cue joke about Wiggins' weight gains)

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      #3
      Bike vs Baboon

      That's fantastic, I didn't realise there were still enclosures like those in safari parks. As kids we used to love being taken to Windsor Safari Park (now Legoland?). The baboons were pretty full-on, if not as impressive as that, but there was also a lion paddock you drove through^. Could health and safety rules allow such a thing today?

      ^highlight was definitely the pair of lions shagging vigorously no more than twenty feet away. What made this better was being a guest for the day of my most het-up and prudish friends. Cue copious amounts of harrumphing, throat clearing, earnestly looking the other way and a juvenile SWR desperately suppressing a severe giggling fit.

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        #4
        Bike vs Baboon

        Looking forward to this; the Devon stage goes right by my village, and along my route to work - Stoke Hill, which I do regularly, gets Cat 2 status.

        They are going to blow the absolute living shit out of my Strava times...

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          #5
          Bike vs Baboon

          You cycle up Stoke Hill? Blimey. I'm never convinced my car will make it up it.

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            #6
            Bike vs Baboon

            Sits With Remote wrote: That's fantastic, I didn't realise there were still enclosures like those in safari parks. As kids we used to love being taken to Windsor Safari Park (now Legoland?). The baboons were pretty full-on, if not as impressive as that, but there was also a lion paddock you drove through^. Could health and safety rules allow such a thing today?

            ^highlight was definitely the pair of lions shagging vigorously no more than twenty feet away. What made this better was being a guest for the day of my most het-up and prudish friends. Cue copious amounts of harrumphing, throat clearing, earnestly looking the other way and a juvenile SWR desperately suppressing a severe giggling fit.
            So, when you were a kid you had friends who didn't find something like that absolutely hilarious? Or have you mis-typed and these were actually your parents' friends?

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              #7
              Bike vs Baboon

              No these were my friends. There are some pretty repressed people in the home counties.

              Ironically every single other acquaintance would have been pissing themselves laughing.

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                #8
                Bike vs Baboon

                It thoroughly pissed down on everyone today in Cumbria, and Cavendish didn't even get a sniff of winning the stage everyone had come out to watch him win, mainly because they made the finish a steep climb you could probably see the Isle of Man from the top of.

                The "Goes past Toro's front door" stage is on Friday, I hope he gets the day off.

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                  #9
                  Bike vs Baboon

                  Baboons tomorrow.

                  Dowsett and Wiggins are within one second of each other and 31"/30" down on the gold jersey, so I think there's a good chance that one of them will take it.

                  Will be interesting to see how Dowsett, Britain's TT Champion, fares against the old master. He certainly did a good job of it in the Giro, though Wiggins wasn't fully fit. I think they are both going for the World TT Championship too.

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                    #10
                    Bike vs Baboon

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                      #11
                      Bike vs Baboon

                      Blimey, Sir Bradley has hammered that. 19 minutes 54 for a 16km ride. In the pissing rain.

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                        #12
                        Bike vs Baboon

                        I watched the ToB yesterday and found it sort of blackly comic. The TdF is an advert for France, they seem to route it through beautiful towns and scenery deliberately because it's basically a free 3-week advert for the country's tourist board.

                        In Britain it just fucking pissed it down. You couldn't even see anything. Mind you, it was fairly accurate picture of the country, I suppose

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                          #13
                          Bike vs Baboon

                          Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote: Blimey, Sir Bradley has hammered that. 19 minutes 54 for a 16km ride. In the pissing rain.
                          Just seen the highlights - a fantastic ride, really going in tight on the corners and then putting serious power down on the exits. Dowsett didn't seem quite so keen to take the risks as Wiggins and Stannard were.

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                            #14
                            Bike vs Baboon

                            ad hoc wrote: I watched the ToB yesterday and found it sort of blackly comic. The TdF is an advert for France, they seem to route it through beautiful towns and scenery deliberately because it's basically a free 3-week advert for the country's tourist board.

                            In Britain it just fucking pissed it down. You couldn't even see anything. Mind you, it was fairly accurate picture of the country, I suppose
                            Seniority means getting to pick your calendar spot. A July ToB and a September TdF would look very different..

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                              #15
                              Bike vs Baboon

                              Now this is some decent scenery, ad hoc.

                              Wiggins' lead faces a bit of a threat after just one day here. There is a break of eleven, 2' ahead of the Sky-led peloton.

                              OPQS, Movistar and Cannondale all have a rider in the break so are not pulling too hard and, for Sky, Stannard isn't being required to pull (as he is second overall) and of course nor is Wiggins - so there are only four riders to do that.

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                                #16
                                Bike vs Baboon

                                In fact Hayman has just had to peel off from the Sky train, so now there are only three pulling.

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                                  #17
                                  Bike vs Baboon

                                  Peloton picks it up a bit now. Looks like Alistair Slater is the highest placed of the breakaway riders at 2'15" on Wiggins. So I think Sir Bradley will retain the gold jersey today, but Slater should jump up the GC.

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                                    #18
                                    Bike vs Baboon

                                    I spoke too soon! Jack Bauer has broken free of the peloton with 7km to go; he is only 55" down on Wiggo. I'm not convinced he'll make it stick though.

                                    Exciting finish, this.

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                                      #19
                                      Bike vs Baboon

                                      Nope. He's caught.

                                      All the attacks and counters have brought the lead down to 30" with 4k to go. The break might even be caught after all.

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                                        #20
                                        Bike vs Baboon

                                        And if you don't want to know the result, look away now...

                                        So the lead was pegged back pretty quickly in the final 7-8k in the end, once Stannard took a turn and then Martin, Quintana and Bauer threatened to open things up. A few late attempts by Scully and Haussler at the front but it was all in vain and the break was swallowed up within the last mile.

                                        Despite it being a 'messy' bunch in the final few hundred yards, rather than neat trains, Cavendish found himself well placed and took the stage win, to the delight of the crowds.

                                        Viviani, second, swerved a fair bit and von Hoff clipped his back wheel on the line - but somehow managed to stay upright.

                                        Garmin - notably Bauer and Martin - will maybe fancy their chances of shaking Wiggins and Stannard up on tomorrow's stage.

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                                          #21
                                          Bike vs Baboon

                                          Well, a few tried. Martin had a go on the final climb with Quintana out of a small selection at the head of the race. But Stannard and Lopez controlled the final kilometres of the race extremely well, putting the power down to haul everyone back in at all the right times.

                                          Irish rider Sam Bennett had kept up with the selection and was easily the fastest man over the line, ahead of Golas. One of Sean Kelly's boys, Bennett might be wanting to try to catch the eye of a World Tour team soon - that's four wins this season (and he was second on stage 2) - and I think he'll be lining up in green with Martin, Roche and a couple of others in the World Championship race next week.

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                                            #22
                                            Bike vs Baboon

                                            Oh, and the win means Bennett takes over the points jersey - so he should be nice and distinctive for Toro to spot tomorrow!

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                                              #23
                                              Bike vs Baboon

                                              Great ride for Sam! Well, my efforts to get hold of a tricolour for the occasion have failed, but if anyone's watching and the cameras are there that early, I'll be one of the idiots by the side of the climb on Pennsylvania Hill just before Exeter tomorrow...

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                                                #24
                                                Bike vs Baboon

                                                Looking forward to the Haytor finish. Went there on holiday only a month ago. It might not be the steepest hill these guys will tackle this week (not even sure it's the steepest today) but it will be the most picturesque for the cameras.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Bike vs Baboon

                                                  They're going to fly though Moretonhampstead in about five minutes on their way up to the moor, they'll pass a pub I had cream tea in with my wife the day we went to Haytor

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