Firstly Jean Vois appearing like a two-armed Venus de Milo from the shrubbery: first the shrubs waved, then the bike appeared, then Jensi appeared: then he looks over his shoulder as though to say "What! They went on without me?!" then he continues walking back towards the road with his bike in one hand, operating his radio with the other.
What a guy.
Next is the Andy stiff-arm: not terribly clear, you need to see moving pictures really, but here's the moment of push-off: He's in the very top right-hand corner of the picture, and the annoying spectator is the one in the blue shirt and red shorts, with black legs. There's no point me making the pic any bigger, it just gets fuzzier.
Go Andy! Slosh him one!
Well done to Figgy for finding a Yootoob video of the last 12km, if you want to see it in action, go to the point where the mileage countdown is at 1.5km to go, and it's just after this group have gone under the 2km banner.
Observation of the fans at this year's TdF (trying to spot Leelu in the crowds) leads to the inescapable conclusion that there are two types of fans:
1) Fans of cycling
2) Idiots who want to be on TV.
They are the ones who face towards the camera bikes, instead of turning to watch the cyclists as they pass, so they're easy to identify.
Although I will make an allowance for the nice folks who stand at the roadside and who wave at the camerabikes and the helicopter, as they pass. That's ok. I particularly hated the ones who were dropping their trousers and "mooning" as the peloton went into a small town on Stage 12. They were annoying. I am hoping that with so many police around, someone found the time to arrest them....
Talking of police, marshalls, crowd control and cars in general, anyone else noticed the pleasing lack of cars around the riders for the last couple of days? Isn't it much nicer to watch? It's lovely being able to see along the group, across the gap and into the chasers, it gives a much better idea of how close they are, without it all being cluttered with hundreds of extraneous cars.
And it must be hundreds, if you consider that there are 22 teams each with 3-4 cars, that's 100: plus white ones, yellow ones, red ones: ok, maybe another couple of dozen, yet that French TV car was car number 800. That was way, way too many cars. I shall be watching with interest to see if the stray cars start creeping back over the remainder of the Tour...
And finally, a couple of odd shots from earlier in the race - did anyone else spot the strange game of "swap-the-shoe" that has been played?
First it was Thor Hushovld (there is no "l" in Hushovd, I must learn to spell that correctly) who was told that he'd been wearing the shoe for quite long enough, thank you, and it was time to take it off.
After quite a lot of conversation, Thor removed his shoe.
He then grumpily hands it in to his team car....
..and pedals off to rejoin the race, with only one shoe.
Meanwhile....
Here he is being steadied by a team-mate as they come up behind their team car.
PS I like their cute little socks with blue undersoles, don't you?
After a short wait, the team car hands him out the shoe, and he puts it on.
This is all while pedalling along at not much less than race speed, of course.
Cries of "Cinderella! You WILL go to the ball" from all directions....
This is a sad reflection on the fact that some teams have much, much bigger budgets than others, and a very pleasing reflection on the way the bigger teams are willing to help the smaller teams along the way.
As a final note, on Stage 15, Sunday's flat stage, Phillipe Gilbert had to hand over BOTH of his shoes!
But as he's been doing so well this year, his team allowed him to wear a substitute pair of shoes, which was nice of them.
Right! Enough of this silliness, for today is a race day again! We are now heading for the Alps: Contador says that he is going to be better in the Alps than he was in the Pyrenees, and is in a fantastic position - he says that he's not bothered about winning the Tour as he has done so well already: “I’m easy in my mind because I’ve already delivered great results this year." he said. (*makes poking motions at him*) Not quite so for Leopard Trek, who are going to be very interesting to watch as we enter the Alps, the longer climbs, the altitude etc.
I don't know about you, but I shall have my fingers and toes crossed for them! And I'm secretly hoping for bad weather this afternoon so that I can stay in and follow the tickers....
I HAD noticed all the shoe swapping going on this year, and definitely enjoyed your close-up shots of the cyclists' socks! LOL. Naturally, I was very disappointed after watching stage 16 today, but I was more impressed with Cadel's strength than in Conti's attacks; he was like a machine at the end of the stage. Here's hoping Frank and Andy eat well, get a great massage tonight, and come back fighting tomorrow for stage 17.
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