More Cycling Action

The Tour of Britain started this past weekend, kicking off the first stage with a great course along the River Thames. But don't worry, this race was only an hour long, so I can probably only stretch this topic out into a two or three part series, not the full five. (Only kidding.)

I had managed to convince one of my coworkers to go with me on Saturday to watch and take pictures (since I knew Laura wasn't too keen on the idea). However, I failed to recognise that the race was on Sunday, not Saturday, so that ended up being a major failure in planning. A few pints of beer made up for my error in judgement, so we're friends again.

On the actual race day, I wandered from my flat down to the river and walked back and forth on the course to get some pictures. The race was 10 laps of a fairly quick circuit between the Tower of London to Westminster, so it provided plenty of opportunity to see the riders again and again.


Typically, the problem with watching a race like this is that you only get to see the cyclists for about 10 seconds as they fly past your spot on the course. It gets a little better on mountain stages, since they're going slower and usually the group breaks apart. The time trial stages are the best for seeing lots of cyclists over a long period of time, but you don't get the dynamism of watching the bunch race together that you do on "normal" stages.


For those reasons, the 10-lap format of this stage was perfect. Lots of chances to see riders combined and lots of chances to see them interacting with each other (breakaways, chases, etc).

Chris Sutton leading in the break.

Team Chipotle was out in force, with Chris Sutton in a breakaway for about 6-7 laps of the race. British champ David Millar didn't see much action, just tucked back in the pack staying safe and upright. After the breakaway was caught and the race came together around lap 8, Magnus Backstedt managed to squeeze through the bunch sprint and claim 3rd on the day.

The rain only came down for a few minutes, so it was a very enjoyable day of spectating. Here's a full showing of my pictures.