Stage 1 Londres to Canterbury

Did you have a good day?
I didn't ride in the end, had a hangover and my mate who was going to ride had just got back from riding in france so we went to Dartford and watched on a slight incline in a residential area, the cheer for millar was mental, I think the word had spread that he had made a breakaway and he was British, the peloton was pretty awesome, never seen that many bikes moving that close so fast.
then a motorway/backlane journey to goudhurst, the place was rammed, great atmosphere and a mental speed up the climb, followed by a pub lunch.

top weekend. i nearly have a tan :-)

Was also in Goudhurst, the atmosphere was buzzing!

Got a few pics here, I'm the gimp in the London-Canterbury Cyclosportive tee. No shots of Millar, me being the doofus I am, I only worked out how to use the camera once the breakaway had passed.

Fecking well annoyed with Eurosport, they showed about 4.81 seconds of Millar's break, nothing of the other climbs of the day. Short of streaking down Goudhurst high street I was trying me fecking hardest to get on the tele!

didn't they go by quick !! stop watched in greenwich, an hour of cars and blaring horns and what seemed the whole of the french gendarmerie and then whoosh by they went stop i felt cheated in a way, didn't seem like 200 odd bikes !! were some in the coaches eating burgers and supping stella !! stop
the prologue was better a much better spread of riders stop
was good to be part of the whole thing though stop the huge amount of people did london and the uk proud so many people all along the whole route stop

Sam, you have me in the background of your last picture. tall bald bloke in the blue t-shirt. if i had known it was you i would have given you the v sign or flashed.

what are you using to post with dicki?

every time you use a full-stop, we see the word "stop" like a telegram

i'm kinda old fashioned sorry is it getting annoying i can stop stop !

World = small place etc.

DId I try to run you over in a green Mini Cooper? (a proper one, none of this BMW wank). If I did, I apologise, I was in a hurry to get home to see the finish!!

yeah i never studied very hard in my english classes and punctuation isn't easy for me !! and i don't use caps either
poor gramma

My brother and I biked over to Woolwich and had a really good view from the roadside as there weren't that many people there. Have any of you taken the lift down into the Thames tunnel at Woolwich? There's this dude of a lift operator who basically lives in his nice wood-panelled lift with a stack of books and mags and reggea and dub on the stereo - it's the coolest lift I've ever been in.

i think my brother got some pictures so I'll post them as soon as he gets them of his camera (assuming they're not just a blur :)

dicki i'm kinda old fashioned sorry is it getting annoying i can stop stop !

At red lights, do you stop I do stop trackstand I mean stop

Spoiler!
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McEwan is an absolute fscking champion!! (Crashes at 20k to go, team brings him back and he destroys the other sprinters for the win!!!)
Poor Cavendish.. what happened to him? His bike fails, then fails again, then he's checkign his arm?? WTF?

dicki:

i'm kinda old fashioned sorry is it getting annoying i can stop stop !

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got a good position facing tower bridge on tooley street, watched peloton then cycled to Hyde Park along deserted roads to watch on the big screens. loads of people had just cycled to the park, really lovely vibe

somebody had an amazing day though - really made me smile this one

http://www.addiscombe.org/members/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4604&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

starts

"Got up to Selsdon Park Hotel just as the Caisse d' Epargne were about to go on their training ride just before 11 this morning.

Approached them and said hi I was a local rider and if they needed a ride I would take them out, they told me about 3 hours 90km so I said alright follow me"

Managed to get a 'decent' shot of Robbie McEwen sprinting for victory about 50 metres out. Bloody amazing speed and am dead chuffed to have caught some of it.

There were so many folks at the end in Canterbury. It was madness esp in the last kilometre. All these folks waiting for hours to see the Peleton shoot past them at speed.

The promotional caravan was just odd though. Sadly not as crazy or as interesting as I'd hoped.

All in all, it just made me want to get on my bike and go for lots of rides :)

I was vodkasick. Thanks to Sky+ I could watch the bloody race. Feckin' awesome work by Robbie!!! I watched that sprint about 30x-over last night.

another awesome day. watched the start of the hill at tonbridge. glad there was a breakaway as other wise it would have been over too quick. quite a few fixies in town. there was also a vintage bike display with some sweet old trackies. including a alain/stan butler. new one on me.

non- cycling highlight of the day was the gokart in the caraven with a 20ft lion on top!

I led a ride down to Brenchley to meet the rest of the CTC, about 500 people at the pub, had a great day after the Tour proper had whizzed by we watched the rest on TV in the bar drinking some great beer, the last seven of us left about 6pm and rode home with another swift pint in the Padwell Arms at Stone Street.
My camera packed up so I had to borrow a mates one as soon as he gives me the pics on a disc I'll post them up.

between Surrey Quays & Deptford

thats right near my place - wish i'd stayed there rather than going into greenwich...it was rammed!

Going....

Going...

Gone!

I've got a few pics of the prologue on my flickr. Gutted I couldn't make the whole day but booked a freelance job before I knew what day it was on.