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L'Etape Anglais

Think a couple of the Swiss signed up for this. Has 6 climbs and a rolling countryside along this route. Sadly .. no closed roads for this event - but fully marshalled by police and first aiders .

As for the London Canterbury stage itself proper .. teh road lay-out will be changed to cope with the riders and the support vehicles. Speeds on these bikes will be in excess of 40 mph .. and they plan to make a wide arc to move to the wrong side of the carriageway .. so that the cyclists will not have to touch the brakes . Furhter on the Canerbury Ring Road .. at the Reims Roundabout (town's twin city.. makes sense as Kings were crowned at the respective Cathedrals ) .. course will also carve a way through the central reservations and apparently they will shave the kerb back a few feet so that the riders can hurtle past the Cathedral (hope I can get a decent photo . as I am planning to go to see this )

Local schools are in on the Tour .. with poster competitions and bicycle riding featuring in the curriculum

Now if only we can get the same sort of enthusiam going for the ToB

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

6000 bikes on the road could well decide otherwise.

For L'Etape du Tour the roads are fully closed and all the locals are out cheering on the participants. You'd think they could manage the same here for a huge one-off event such as this. Here's hoping they'll see some sense before July (yeah, right).
I'm still going to be doing the ride but it would be nice not to have the added danger of oncoming traffic and, no doubt, a good number of idiots trying to drive past while riding in such a huge group.

I'll be doing this as well. Hopefully get a 6 am start so I'll be finished whilst most of the Kent drivers are still in the pub.

Hey .. I signed up to this ..along with Andreas and his chums. I do hope we meet /. fellow cycling dude!

Know what you mean about them Kent drivers We do note a decline in standards as we head "sarf".


I guess we Northern 'ard nuts can teach you "sarfies" and estuary English glottal stoppers (nuff said) a thing or two I bet we finish the course fairly quickly .. with time for a Larkin style BRUNCH!

(Northern tongue in cheek Dodo and back too. Honestly and sincerely meant. We ride bikes.. we drive our cars.. we enjoy our lives. We vote for justice and despise injustices. )

IG has booked leave to coincide .. but he plans to watch the Tour and follow it over the channel as I understand. We plan our hols a little differently so as to enjoy a lot more

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If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

<oops>

let's try that again...

all registered... not long to go now. Hope the monsoons hold off for a few more hours.

ride strong.

Well, the monsoons held off for a few hours. A bit of drizzle at the start and a 5 minute shower somewhere near Tunbridge was the only rain during the ride. I managed to get around in 7:13 (including about 25minutes of stops as my computer had the ride time as 6:48).

Not a bad course to ride but having ridden several etapes the atmosphere and organistation was not in the same league:
- no closed roads so we needed to contend with the usual motorised idiots. Amazingly nobody was killed during the numerous blind bend overtakes that I saw. (more below)
- fewer spectators than in France
- far less organised - the supply truck didn't made it to the 4th refreshment stop until about 5 minutes after I got there and had only just made it to the 5th a few minutes before me. Somehow it had managed to run out of energy drinks before getting there so none were available.
- not many mashalls along the way.
- didn't seem to be many foreigners riding. Ok, so there were a few other Aussies and some Yanks but I didn't hear anyone speaking anything other than English.
- despite patting themselves on the back about how wonderful it is to be hosting a stage of the tour the numpties in charge, unlike their more enlightened French counterparts, haven't bothered resurfacing the roads so the peloton will not only have to contend with single track roads covered in gravel and shit along with a ridiculous amount of street furniture but also huge potholes as well. What a great way to convince them to come back.

On the plus side, the course while rolling was a pretty easy ride compared to a mountain stage.

re the motorised idiots - another plus was to see a the police out and about taking care of some of them, even if we could have done with more of them (or preferably closed roads).
A nice sight was at one point when I'd just been passed by one officer who was riding some sort of sports bike (what's with that?) when some fool in a minibus decided to force its way between me and the pack that I was gaining on and that the cop was now following. The officer was kind enough to slow the bus down so I could ride around it and catch the bunch. Once he'd sorted that out he took off up the road to the next junction, a left turn from our single track road onto a B road, and blocked the traffic so we could ride through unimpeded. Thanks to that policeman!

All in all an enjoyable day despite the niggles.