ToB - Stage 1 Route - Peebles to Drumlanrig Castle

Paul 8v

RideOnTime wrote:

This was never mean't as a spoiler...
No spoiler started.
I wanted a TdF style spoiler with ya Geology, History, maps etc etc

Hey, what about local horse breeds?

RideOnTime

oh yeah
put that beaver down for god's sake

Paul 8v

It's a boar man, can't believe you've forgotten about that old cycling tradition of chasing Columbians with a three legged boar in your arms.

IanLD

Got a mix of conditions at the finish, but was consistently cold and windy.

Not too sure what FF was watching. Was very cold and windy all the time at the finish with temperature only 8c. Rain came and went with some sporadic sunshine.

Bit chaotic at the finish and as we were not far away from the crash, the crowd were looking in both directions so difficult to get a clear view.

Reasonably busy for a pretty poor day and looked like a fair size crowd en route. Pity it rained so much as the grass turned in to a sea of mud, but at least the car parks held up.

alan_a

Took 3.5yo daughter to Drumlanrig for the finish. Expected to be there for 2 hours but because of the really slow rate of the peloton it turned into 4 hours. Thank god for motorcycles. At the 2hr mark boredom had really set in, but thankfully every 3 or 4 minutes another police outrider came past flashing lights, nee nawing and waving. I think we have a convert, however her when at home her mum asked her about her adventures... There was lots of chat about motorbikes, bike on cars, the castle had no flag, sheep, mud, helicopters, man on the microphone going Hup Hup Hup but not one mention of men on bikes racing.

There was a good sized crowd but to my eyes not much bigger than 2008 and a lot smaller than Dumfries last 2 years. Crowd probably would have been bigger had they not shut the park to cars at 2pm. There was mud... Lots of it, but thankfully while we there there we only got caught in 10 minute shower of rain.

Driving there we saw the Madison truck off the road in the ditch. No major damage - front passenger side lights taken out by fence posts. It was bloody windy on top of A702. Glad I wasn't riding yesterday.

Can't comment on the quality of the win because my sight was blocked by said daughter on my shoulders loudly banging those inflatable sticks together, in front of my face, while shouting Hup Hup Hup

Paul 8v

They had hup hup hup man at the tour series in Colchester, he started hupping (is that the verb?) about an hour before the race even started. I really wanted to ram his microphone down his throat after a while! Worse thing was you could actually hear him in the background of the commentary on Eurosport yesterday.

Ed-tron

Mainly overhead helicopter shots of the final 1k on the highlights last night. Felt a bit removed from the action.

Was that Josh Edmondson gloveless? Heavyweight?!

IanLD

Alan A wrote:

Took 3.5yo daughter to Drumlanrig for the finish. Expected to be there for 2 hours but because of the really slow rate of the peloton it turned into 4 hours. Thank god for motorcycles. At the 2hr mark boredom had really set in, but thankfully every 3 or 4 minutes another police outrider came past flashing lights, nee nawing and waving. I think we have a convert, however her when at home her mum asked her about her adventures... There was lots of chat about motorbikes, bike on cars, the castle had no flag, sheep, mud, helicopters, man on the microphone going Hup Hup Hup but not one mention of men on bikes racing.

There was a good sized crowd but to my eyes not much bigger than 2008 and a lot smaller than Dumfries last 2 years. Crowd probably would have been bigger had they not shut the park to cars at 2pm. There was mud... Lots of it, but thankfully while we there there we only got caught in 10 minute shower of rain.

Driving there we saw the Madison truck off the road in the ditch. No major damage - front passenger side lights taken out by fence posts. It was bloody windy on top of A702. Glad I wasn't riding yesterday.

Can't comment on the quality of the win because my sight was blocked by said daughter on my shoulders loudly banging those inflatable sticks together, in front of my face, while shouting Hup Hup Hup

Admired how brave you were in choosing to have some bare skin on your legs. We were freezing enough with three layers on up top and overtousers too. Saw you explaining to your daughter what direction they were going to come in, but her summary sounds pretty good as it was a lot of waiting for a brief moment of action.

Pross

That last few kms was far too narrow for what was always likely to be a fairly big group sprint. One thing to have it tight and technical a few kms out but you have to at least give the sprinters an opportunity to get through. One team on the front could have effectively blocked everyone and just rolled across the line.

nweststeyn

My favourite thing about yesterdays stage was the fact that, outside the anti-doping van they placed a board listing the bib numbers who would be tested. With about 60km left to race, Toon Cruyt, the Omega-Pharma Quickstep team doctor appeared beside us and stood on his tiptoes to read the board at the other side of the circuit. He then noted down the numbers and made a phone call. The scene was made even better by the fact he then wandered off mysteriously into the trees.

Now I know that they are simply being prepared, so they know if they will be delayed in leaving for their hotel, but we found it pretty funny imagining what some of the forum members here would've made of it.

P.S. Wiggo was one of the riders to be picked for testing, incase that makes any difference to anyone about anything.

Richmond Racer

Its also so that they can line up the soigneur to tell the rider after the finish that he's been selected for testing, and be with him with the chaperone etc.

But you're right - the Asylum would weave some whole scenario out of the woodland wander

morstar

Paul 8v wrote:

They had hup hup hup man at the tour series in Colchester, he started hupping (is that the verb?) about an hour before the race even started. I really wanted to ram his microphone down his throat after a while! Worse thing was you could actually hear him in the background of the commentary on Eurosport yesterday.

You could hear him on the commentary for the London thingy a few weeks back. Really not sure about this type of thing.

Went to the filming of a kids BBC studio show a year or so ago and I have to say the compere did an amazing job as we entered the 4th hour of filming. Having been to quite a few UK pro races, the relentless hup hup bang the boards seems to lack a bit of imagination.
Went to see the ironman finish in Bolton in August and the guy there did a good job of mixing talking about the event and the sport in general with some more generic crowd excitement stuff. Seems far better than what the top UK races get.