Tour De France visits London

Seems strange that the Tour De France should come to England. I guess we’re neighbours, at least.

The picture below is from the Prologue stage around Central London.

As luck would have it …

… it was a lovely sunny day. The first we’ve had for a couple of weeks. Perfect cycling weather. Unless you’re going flat out trying to snatch the yellow jersey in under 9 minutes of intense cycling, that is.

I was pleased to see that this event was very well attended. Must be nice for the riders to have some support along the way. Of course the downside is that it was hard to get near the front to see anything. We managed to get a good spot in the end, after walking a fair way around the course. I think the organisers could certainly have made it a lot easier for people to view the event. It was only possible to cross the track (by bridge) at a couple of locations.

The fact that the event was a time trial meant that riders rode one by one. This wasn’t quite as impressive as seeing a whole bunch of riders racing together, but means that the event lasts a lot longer. Sunday’s event was a proper cycling stage setting off in London and arriving in Kent later, although I didn’t go to watch, knowing that there wouldn’t be all that much to see once the riders were gone.

My pictures came out mostly either blurry, or missing the cyclist completely. The riders were moving at over 40mph and so were pretty tricky to catch with the camera. Even on the uphill stretch by Hyde Park, the riders were moving faster than I can cycle going downwards on the same bit of road. Clearly this is to do with their state of the art bicycles and nothing whatsover to do with the person riding them!