The weather has been pretty lame in London for the last couple months, or I guess you could say all year but mainly the last couple months as the expectations are higher, since we are officially in the 2nd month of summer. For some reason on the Tour de France weekend the sun decided to come out. According to the media there were over 1.5 million people in attendance and definitely everywhere you went there were loads of people.
It made for a great day with the sun, the huge crowds and the world’s most popular cycling event. Rach and I don’t really know anything about cycling but it was good to see it in the flesh. The Saturday started off with a parade of cars going around throwing free goodies into the crowds (bottles of water, food samples, tiny toy bikes etc) as well as people dancing to music on floating dance floors on top of vans. This was on just before the race started.
Rach and I managed to find a good spot, right up against the fence ready for the action to begin. Unfortunately as the riders came round it was evident that there was only going to be one rider at a time. I thought it was going to be done in a big pack, but at this particular event it was only one rider every few minutes for a time trial over an 8km course passing Big Ben, going around central London and finishing at Buckingham Palace.
The event decides who will get the prestigious yellow jersey for the next day. This is given to the winner at the end of the day to wear on the next day so everyone can tell they are in the overall lead. People were saying that because the event was just a short time trial, that that many of the riders actually save them self for the big long race as the time trials doesn’t affect the long race.
Anyway, it was quite cool seeing such a huge event, huge crowds, great weather and great atmosphere all right near our home in central London. A few of our friends went and they too, all thought it was great. It sure beats sitting at home watching the TV.
I still have no idea why the Tour de France started in London but I’m glad they did.
To see some photos of the day, visit here:
http://www.gabnation.com/albums/2007/tourdefrance/