People, People and More People, So far the first two days of this years Tour De France has lured more people to the roadsides than I have ever seen in my life. I spent stage 1 doing the pre-course information for the team. Most of the day was driving at low speed, paying great attention that someones kid, whose parents thought the roads were closed, didnt wander out in front of me. Or hoping that some drunk people, who were pretending not to move out of my way, did - just in time. There were so many people out on the road yesterday that most of the time I couldnt even give information back to the race car as the mobile phone network was blocked. In the end, it was a bit of a difficult day for us with Gerro hitting the ground hard in the final. This crash cost him a possible stage 2 and a plan to try and take the leaders jersey. Although there was no serious damage to him, I can tell you that at 34yrs of age you get more affected than a 22 year old. So it was always going to be difficult for him to back up in stage 2. Anyway, the boys raced well all the same and during stage 2 I gave off some info where I could and then planted myself on the penultimate climb to hand off some bottles. The spectators view was a first for me and what an experience it was. Some of the people had been waiting 4 hours for the race to roll past. Then, finally we could see the helicopter hover over the range of hills in the distance, soon after the red lead car crested the top and snake its way down the descent we could see across the valley. At last the riders themselves came into view and then the thousands of people on the hillside where I were waiting, just erupted into applause and cheers. Im not normally one to get over excited about things but the en masse enthusiasm was infectious....even to me. We will see what its like going into London today but I dont think its possible for there to be more people out there than weve already seen.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 09:39:44 +0000
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