le tour de france

Posted on | July 8, 2010 | 3 Comments

ok, this was SUPER exciting.
you never met two less likely sports tourists as maurice and myself…..and our idea of a big morning’s exercise is walking to the patisserie.
however, we turned into rabid cycling fanatics for 24 hours when the tour de france swept through champagne.

last night, they raced into reims and we watched it on tv, with a couple of friends from australia and nz, who are actually chasing the entire race around the country….in a peugeot van….with their fancy bicycles as well!….and it wasn’t their first time doing this, either.
so they were able to tell us who was who and what was happening.
this race is a brutal business, with crashes and injuries galore and all kinds of rules so nobody can just cruise along.
a new zealander came second and an australian came fourth yesterday, so everybody was happy with that.
then we pored over maps and the tour book and worked out where we could drive to, to most conveniently see the race go past.

today, the race started in epernay at 12.30pm (all this mad cycling in the hot hot afternoon, i don’t know how they do it…..anyone normal would want a nap. in the shade).
we parked where the road was blocked off and walked down the highway to a roundabout where they would be zipping through….about 5 km from the start.
people were already set up with umbrellas and barbecues and bottles of champagne and cameras at the ready.

at about midday, the official traffic began.
cars and motorcycles straggled past….sponsors, partners, media, team support….for a full thirty minutes.
the excitement was building….some kids near us were getting quite overwrought….or maybe that was us.
we were looking down a straight of about 1 km, to a curve and suddenly, they all exploded around the curve and started hammering down the straight.
because the race had just begun, they were all travelling in a solid pack.
within a couple of breaths they were upon us….we could have reached out and touched the riders…..and then they were gone, splitting in two packs to pour around the roundabout.
it was utterly thrilling!
all the colour and shininess and cheering, it was full panoply really,….and then dozens of support vehicles loaded with spare bikes and wheels.
and within 90 seconds everyone was past and the whole thing was over.
i managed to snap off about three photos…using the sports setting on the leica for the first time everrrrr……and because one of our guests kindly left the relevant usb connector with me, i’ll be able to upload those in the next day or so.

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hi, i'm patti flynn

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