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Yeah, shame about Cavendish for you UK folks now that the TdF is finally in your country (even though I personally think he acts like a twat most of the time, and he caused the accident himself, so I'm not terribly compassionate in this case). We only have one Norwegian participating this year (Alexander Kristoff), and I hope he'll manage to win a stage at some point. Finally? We've had Le Tour before, Thor. It came through the village I lived in at the time many years ago. And at least once before that-before I was born.
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Enjoy The Big Bugger Off, as your folk have affectionately rechristened it!
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Posted: |
Jul 6, 2014 - 5:43 AM
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By: |
Tall Guy
(Member)
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Well, back home again... Le Grand Départ was Un Petit Anticlimax as far as I'm concerned. It took about 20 seconds for all 200 competitors to ride past me, standing on Goodramgate, one of York's narrow medieval roads. Decent atmosphere, with the motorbike-mounted gendarmerie and tv cars leading the way over a period of about an hour, then the riders - WOOOSH, there they go - and then dozens of support vehicles tagging along behind. By which time I was already trekking back to my car. I'm not sure what ANY of us were expecting, but there was a definite sense of "Uh, is that it, then?" as I was working my way through the crowds. Great news for Yorkshire, overall, as thousands of tourists have descended to spend their euros, and I can now say that I was there at a once-in-a-lifetime event, but I think that, if you enjoy watching other people cycling, it's one of those things better seen on the television.
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Decent atmosphere, with the motorbike-mounted gendarmerie and tv cars leading the way over a period of about an hour, then the riders - WOOOSH, there they go - and then dozens of support vehicles tagging along behind. By which time I was already trekking back to my car. I'm not sure what ANY of us were expecting, but there was a definite sense of "Uh, is that it, then?" as I was working my way through the crowds. The Giro went past my front door a few weeks ago. 'Here they come .... they're coming ..... there they are ..... that's them gone ...' And they weren't even out of the main peloton, really pacing themselves. Everything decked in pink, the official colours of the Giro, church bells ringing, helicopters, you name it. One woman from the local parish church turned up at the refreshments stall with about 300 of those pink wafers that always get left at the bottom of the biscuit box. Guess what: they got left. She's probably still eating them.
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Well, I've just spent the last two days with a guy who raves about cycling full stop. Fortunately, he also wanted to celebrate with me the life and times of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, by taking part in the Lord Mayor's Parade for the Ulverston (Cumbria, England and Stan's birth town), along with at least a hundred other Sons of the Desert on Saturday. We did catch up with the blokes on bikes when we stopped off in a pub in Manchester on the way home, on tv. And we saw the people lined streets as we made our way back from Sheffield to our home town of Hoyland (all of this by train). But he was so enthralled by it all that the lure of the pubs of nearby Elsecar village proved too much. I believe he is now slumped in front of his tv watching his wife's recordings of the coverage. Personally I suspect he's asleep. I know I would be.
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Well the tour of yorkshire is in fact the tour of essex tomorrow. Street closures on a working day and most of epping forest shut. Wont be going north essex tomorrow thats for sure. These fkn lycras - cant even stick to the cycle paths!! What i wanna know is how bloody fast they rode if they were in yorks tonight and start in cambridge by tomorrow morning??? Thats fast pedalling!! Gotta be a cycling world record, no?!
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And what's with Tour de France when it's somewhere else? Must have to be into cycling big style to understand. Of course if someone out there loves this stuff.... Join in and tell us we're boring neanderthals! We'd love to clash.
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