Tour de France 2014 - Au revoir Yorkshire and the south, bonjour les montagnes et les côtes!!

[Panwearsjaune]

_

Photo finish!!!

If Pete keeps this up he won't be caught imo, there aren't any straits long enough for slipstreaming to be effective.

Alex Dowsett has abandoned!

I love a good breakaway. With this weather and this course it'll be hard work for the peleton to attack effectively. 65 abandons so far, Rohan Dennis crashed so the Aussie team is down one.

awful awful awful weather

It's just keeping the dust off the chains.

If they carry on dropping out at this rate, there'll be more medals than people to wear them! What a crappy day. Hannah Barnes tweeted about an hour ago: "The guys were pretty smug and had a good old giggle when we had to get up at 5 for our race this morning! Look who's laughing now!!"

I've got so many bits of me crossed for Geraint I'm sitting most uncomfortably. Gutted for Pete K though

jack Bauer is a worthy candidate for support, too.
I just want an exciting finish! :)

Even Welsh dh has just said he doesn't mind if Jack Bauer wins, lol.

Well that was a bit too exciting for me!

YAAAAAY!

Omg, we were all in panic when he had that puncture! Soooooo pleased for him :)

We watched the women start at home and then cycled in to town, seeing them on Lap 2 in St Vincent Street and then at various points around the course.

Got a good spot in front of Bilslands for the start of the Men's race. We were already soaked at this point. Watched at various points again, High Street, Osborne Street, St Vincent Street (both start and finish), West George Street. We finally gave up at Sauchiehall Street (we were working our way over to the West End again) and went home to watch the last 3 laps as there were rivers running down the roads.

We stupidly hadn't taken full wet weather gear (although at least had rain jackets/grid fleeces) so the rucksacks were leaking and our legs were sodden and we had no umbrella to shelter under.

Now must go and download my photos.

Really pleased for G - great to see a super-domestique getting the accolade

Tour of Poland has it all at the moment, hailstones, headwind and a fallen tree blocking the road.

it's utter carnage!

Wow. The whole break of 4 crashed on a corner into a parked lorry.

I think Pete ran out of biscuits, but Geraint went out and won deservedly. He was ossum. That race was a war of attrition, and I don't blame them.

It was lovely to see Lizzie Armitstead and Emma Pooley get first and second place too. Emma is like Geraint; ever the domestique. She's brilliant at what she does and worked tirelessly today, as she always does. Respeck.

I was watching the Tour of Poland through my fingers !

So happy for G, he rode the perfect tactical race & got the reward.

And today Petr Vakoc channelled Tony Martin. So exciting to see whether he hung on or not!

Where is the tour of Poland on the telly? We only have freeview.....
Pleased for G, so that's a Welshman riding well in the rain again, who'd have thought it eh?
lostinwales hope the patches suit you better, constant pain is very wearing and needs careful management

Ooh yes camper van grand tour following. I'll leave DH with the kids and join the convoy.
Can I hitch a ride if I promise to bring and ?

Just started Ned Boulting's On The Road Bike. Hilarious so far. Recommended.

Also have Wegelius' Domestique on it's wheel.

Needs first book is funny too. Funnier I think, 'how I won the yellow jumper'

I have just watched Rough Rider, a documentary on doping in cycling by Paul Kimmage, the Irish sports journalist who has done a lot to raise awareness of cycling's murky past. It was on RTE, an Irish channel, but I hope UK channels will show it at some point as it's well worth watching. Kimmage was a pro-cyclist in the 1980s, and wrote a book called Rough Ride about his experiences in the peloton, which made him very unpopular with the UCI and with many of his contemporaries. It's an interesting read.

That's next after Domestique, lets.

Whilst I'm here, can I please pass the road capt jersey to someone else for La Vuelta?
I won't be around for a chunk of it, I'm afraid. It means making effort to keep this unruly peloton in some kind of order, and of course lugging the podium out the back of the team Skoda. I can pass on the manuals in it's various iterations and amendments, and hopefully SDTG will pass on her pattern for the magic jerseys.
Any volunteers for this most prestigious and humbling position?

I don't mind having a go Pan. I'm usually happiest sitting on the team bus discussing tactics and strategy but am willing to lead from the front for a change. Luckily we still have a couple of weeks before our team captain needs to be selected. :o