Tour of Britain 2017 - Stage 8 - Start in Worcester

We went to the see the start of Stage 8 of the Tour of Britain in Worcester on Sunday 10 September

We were near the start line so got a good glimpse of both the team buses and bikes but also the riders riding to sign on and then the start itself. 

Here is a  large number of photos:

Team Lotto Jumbo

Team Katusha

Team Quickstep

Team Cannondale

Detail of climbs and feed zones taped to stem (Team Cannondale)

One of the Cannondale riders was using disk brakes

No Barriers at Team Connandale

Dan Martin - Team Quickstep

Elia Viviani - Team Sky

Tao Geoghegan Hart - Team Sky

Christain Knees (I think) - Team Sky

Alex Dowsett - Team Movistar

Mark Cavendish - Team Dimension Data

Tour of Britain 2015 - Stage 1 Wrexham

On Sunday 6 September we went to watch the end of the 1st Stage of the Tour of Britain in Wrexham. I rode Horseshoe Pass in the morning and then we drove over to Wrexham for lunch before the race was due to arrive some time between 3 and 4pm. I'd looked for somewhere to park before we left but as we were driving towards Wrexham we saw a sign for ToB Park and Ride so followed that. We rolled up at a small industrial estate with a bus waiting. It turned out that the bus was free so we could not fault that, and it dropped us near the bus station about 5 minutes from the finishing line.

We walked about for a while looking for somewhere to eat and were not that impressed with Wrexham. However we finally found a Wetherspoons in the old The North and South Wales Bank. A lot of people criticise Wetherspoons but they are sympathetic to the buildings they occupy and this was no exception. The roof was beautiful:

Service was OK as well and I had faggots which I like

We then walked over to the "entertainment" area at the finish line. I collected a free Etixx water bottle (that I have sold my soul for with my email address):

We then found somewhere to wait and ended up exactly at the 100m board:

At the 100m line waving the only freebie we managed to get

We then had to wait about 1½ for the riders to arrive. There was some commentary whilst waiting and although there was a big screen we could only see about ¼ of it. Suddenly they were there. Cavendish and Greipl were obvious and were flat out. The atmosphere was tremendous and the roar of the crowd for Cavendish was massive.

Mark Cavendish

Alex Dowsett

At the race end we did push to get nearer the front and just about were able to see the presentation. On the screen Kristian House got promoted to Team Sky!

Kristian House has moved teams all of  a sudden!

Cavendish probably got he biggest cheer - he got a fairly token prize in comparison to what he could have got if he'd been 0.05 seconds faster though.

Mark Cavendish

Then we drove home. All in all - a good day out.