Tour de France in London
A few words on the Tour de France in London.
- First of all I would like to cheer for the London police. Not only do they do their very best to keep our city safe, but I have never met a police man or woman who wasn’t incredibly friendly. There are a lot of them on the streets and near the large stations in London since the failed car bombings last week, and they were very visible today as well. It’s absolutely fine with me. And let’s face it: those bobby hats are incredibly sexy.
- The Caravane which comes before the actual race starts is rather ridiculous. Most of the vehicles throwing stuff at you (no kidding, they do: pens, hats, candy) were French brands and I suspect it to be at least double as long when the tour gets back to stages in France. It was great for the kids though, but it was incredible to watch big grown up men competing with the kids on catching a bunch of lollies thrown by ever smiling ladies on weird cars.
- Yes it was busy, but it was not impossible to find a space to stand.
- The sun was shining all day.
- The logo of the Tour de France, London (the one in the middle) proves that it is in fact possible to design cool logos for huge sport events in London.
- Those men in latex on bikes were fast. Incredibly fast! Of course they only had to bike 5 miles (8 km) today (which took them about 9 minutes!), so they could use all their energy to bike fast. But it was nearly too fast for my camera to snap. And too fast to recognize who they were when they swooshed by. The only way to find out who they were was to check their names on the car driving behind them. The cars were fast too, but it was possible if you paid attention.
- I saw the last part on the telly at home. London looked fantastic from the air filmed by the French directed helicopters. And the route made London look incredibly green, lots of trees, nice lake (Serpentine in Hyde Park), a lot of happy people. A nice city to live in.
- Here is one of my more successful pictures. Check those legs.
- The little boy beside me to his dad when another runner passed by with the speed of light:
“I saw him smiling”.
That made me smile.
Whew … you are so lucky!! I would love to see part of the Tour up close … yes, those legs are something else … this guy’s particularly so!! Maybe an uphill spot on a mountain stage would be a good thing – they’d be going slower.
And London looked very lovely on my TV although we have to listen to the American coverage …
I’m sure this event is thrilling lots of people, but it’s playing havoc with the traffic in one of the World’s most already congested cities. It took me 2 hours driving to get to work in London yesterday, and I’m not looking forward to the drive today either. Completely shutting off a major city to traffic is not pleasant to those of us who have to go to work! Sorry for the rant… great photo, hoped you enjoyed yourself. Did you get any freebies?
A Bobby hat sexy? When I see a Constabulary Hat I must think of “The Thin Blue Line” with Rowan Atkinson. I don’t know why, but it’s not sexy!
Wonder why the TdF doesn’t stay in France. The country is big enough, isn’t it?
I guess I would try to catch some lollies too :-)
The logo for TdF London is defenitely beter than the one for the Olympics in 2012.
Yes, great picture, but I don’t fancy men’s legs. When does the Tour Féminin start?
Great picture. I’m impressed you got even one good photo. My attempts at sports photography with a digital camera have always left me with a foot at the side of the photo and an empty field.
But Policeman’s hats sexy??!! I’ve always thought they make our police look more buffoon-like and that was before Rowan Atkinson!!!
I agree about the logo.
About the bobby hats – I was joking!!
@Matron: I can see your problem, but hey, this was a one time only event for London. And I guess you couldn’t take the tube to get around? As that was working fine.
@Pedro: I will try to score a picture of a girl for you sometime :-)
@grigorisgirl: well I took a kazillion pictures, and only few of them were OK. :-)
Oh, about the freebies:
I got a hat thrown in my face, which I delivered to the boy beside me. I got hit by a couple of Moar (not sure I spelled it right) bars, I ate one of them, and got hit by a pen, which I took with me. For the rest of the stuff: I dived.
It really is intriguing – why does the Tour *de France* go to London? :) But very cool logo anyway!
Very funny to picture you diving from goodies being thrown :)
How artistic that the pose of the rider echoes the rider incorporated into the red D in the London part of the logo! He appears to have burst from the sky-blue section of the banner to join in the race!
Gold star for Ingrid!
I agree with Michele, you’ve taken the picture spot on the right moment.
Perhaps you can sell it?
I could say: Yeah I knew that when I was shooting that picture,
But the truth is, of course, as with most of my pictures, I had no idea about this! I first spot this now in my own picture, and have to say, yeah, that looks rather funky! :) A lucky shot I guess.
Superb photograph. Most people would try to make the crowd blurred and the bike in focus but this opposite works really well. Cool.