Tour de France Stage One

On Saturday EG and I got up at two in the morning and made our way to Yorkshire. The pouring rain didn't put us off, although we didn't envy the volunteers who were stood at the entrance to car parks from 1:30 in the morning. We made it to our chosen spot just before 4am.






A bit of napping happened, but at 7 we went to explore potential viewing sights. Back to the car and found the battery was dead. Ooops. Off to find a ranger to help fix it. We start to worry that we will be caught on camera looking at a car engine rather than the cyclists. But it gets fixed and we hurry off again to our spot, a little later than planned.

It felt like thousands of people came past us on bikes, heading for the summit further up. Behind them came the madness of the race caravan.









And then the break. Was very pleased to see that Jens Voigt was in the break. But the biggest excitement was when the peloton came through.

We could have touched them they were so close. It didn't feel real
but it was brilliant!