Tour of Britain: the Finish.

At last, the final day of the Tour of Britain, and LLB and I were off to Guildford for the day.

The race was due through a little after one o'clock, then off round the countryside in a big loop, and back again at about four-ish for the finish.

We arrived in plenty of time, and were staggered to find the streets of Guildford (Note for non-UK readers: Guildford is a negligible town just south of London, far enough out not to be of any use or any interest, but close enough to be entangled in the London traffic and inflated house prices. End of Note) packed with people.

Staggering amounts of people! Yes, we were standing  up, but we were still staggering!

We located the team buses, and yes, I did consider another mumping expedition, but there was no-one to be seen, in most cases: and the buses were mostly roped off from the road. I tried to catch the eye of a mechanic or two, but with no luck.

We found the finish line, and worked out where they would be going on the first circuit, but the crowds were already three or four deep along the barriers, and a lot of people had brought chairs and were camping out, determined to keep "their" spot.  So we made our way down the cobbled hill away from the start line, and eventually settled ourselves by the barriers.

It wasn't a particularly good place, being at the bottom of the hill leading into the town, just as they started going uphill to the finish line, which on this circuit would be a sprint point - so they would be going at maximum velocity.

But we didn't care, we stood there and cheered, waving our Sky flags, as the lead group - including Jonathon Tiernan-Locke, eventual winner - whooshed past, followed a minute or so later by the peloton.

We then had at least three hours before they returned to Guildford for the finish, so we wandered off, had some lunch,  I made my successful foray to the Orica team bus (see Mumping the Musettes for full details) and on the way back, found Elz, one of my Twitter chums who was working as a Marshall for the race, and proudly showed her the Orica musette. She was easy to spot, she had a sign pinned to the back of her high-vis bib which read "Call me!"  It was quite an experience, to actually meet someone I have only ever Tweeted to! I still live in hope of finding other Schlecklanders....

(Note for Alice: it would be more correct to say "It was quite an experience, to actually meet [oops, split infinitive] someone with whom I have only ever Tweeted." rather than "someone I have only ever Tweeted to." But that is a bit formal. End of Note.)

LLB and I found a much better place to stand to watch the end of the race: just past the finish.

"Past the finish?" I hear you ask, "But surely you won't see anything?"

Quite the reverse: at the finish they all come steaming in at five hundred mph, so all you see is a blur. But just after the finish, that's where they mill about, slap each other on the back, cry on each other's shoulders and so on.  The finish was to our right, and the team buses were all to our left, so we knew that every single rider was going to have to come past us.

Also, we had a lot of faces to watch: there was a constant stream of people wandering up and down towards the podium,  not least being Dave Brailsford of Team Sky, along with his PR lady, Fran Millar (sister of rider David Millar of Garmin). She was getting a bit exasperated that Dave kept stopping to sign autographs and chat, as she wanted her lunch. We exchanged some words of encouragement - and suggested she put him on a lead - and next day, on Twitter, we had this exchange:

At this point, I have to say to anyone planning to attend a cycle race, it helps to develop sharp elbows and quite a thick skin, as people are incredibly rude about barging their way in to the barrier. People who arrive early have earned their spot at the barrier: people who arrive ten minutes before the event cannot expect everyone to make way for them. Woman with annoying whiney voice, That Means You.

Another annoying tactic which we saw being used repeatedly is for a parent to shove a small child towards the barrier, with the unspoken sub-text of "aww, my tiny child is too small to see from back here, just let him in in front of you, go on," but then the parents push in alongside the child. One woman in particular was trying to work her way along the barrier to the finish line in this fashion, making enemies all the way.

A long time, and many elbows later, the race finished, Cav won, yay! and suddenly we were right in the middle of it.

This is the scene just before the finish, you can see all the soigneurs are gathering, and yes, that is the podium, that semi-circular thing. It looks so big on the TV, but it's tiny in real life!

For the next ten minutes we had a succession of riders whooshing past us: here are a selection of my shots, starting with Christian Knees:

Below: left-hand United Healthcare rider: "Hey, don't cry!"

Mark de Marre, other United Healthcare rider in yellow (Curacao national champion kit) "Waaaaaaah!"

Cav is mobbed by Sky riders and journalists.

Sky's Jeremy Hunt needs a push: well, it's his last race, he's retiring now.

My pet, Luke Rowe: "Yay, Luke!"

The blackboard girly being squashed by the cavalcade. Talk about chaos!

Dan Lloyd, done for the day.

The blackboard girly is still stuck in the traffic jam, and narrowly avoids being squashed by the Raleigh team car - for the second time! They reversed to let the UK Youth car into the gap, and very nearly got her.

"Hi, Yanto!"  The benefits of coming in 6th: you don't have to go on the podium or doping control, so you can get changed out of your sweaty kit before the rest of your team have even crossed the line!

And yes, it was complete coincidence that we happened to be positioned exactly opposite the UK Youth van. Honest.

Garmin riders arrive... in the background, UK Youth are already packing up their bikes.

Dan Craven "Mr Beardy" of Sigma Sport, with a serious amount of bandaging.

And so on. Well, there you have it, I've now been to a Start, and to a Finish, all that leaves is a Mountain stage, and I will have done the lot!

Oh, nearly forgot one other moment of note: as the Sky team cars came round the corner, LLB and I waved our hand-made Sky flags, and they beeped and waved at us, which was nice.