21st September: Tour of Britain

The very much smaller brother of the Tour de France was running this week: the Tour of Britain, which saw some of the world's top cyclists hooning around on these shores on 2 wheels, including Sir Bradley Wiggins, Mark Cavendish and Nairo Quintana.

On its penultimate day, this year's route took a meander close to where I live - Stage 7 from Epsom racecourse to Guildford. The course took the riders through Surrey and in particular through the village Farnham at its most westerly extremity, with Farnham being a mere 10 miles from home.

I had mentioned several times to the guys down the pub about going to cheer on the riders and by the time I left our weekly drink after closing time in the pub on Thursday, the yes's and maybe's had dwindled down to just Pini and myself.

On the Saturday I put on my MAMIL gear and knocked on Pini's door and off we cycled to Farnham. 10 miles isn't too far, but there is the small matter of an effing big hill in the way. It may not be Mont Ventoux, but by the time you get to the top of that you feel you really have been cycling and its classified as a 'Category 4' climb on the cycling website Strava - 4 being the lowest of hill climb gradings when they become worthwhile grading! At least from the top of this hill there's a quick steep descent in to Farnham itself so you do not need to pedal for the last mile.

We arrived and took our position on the bottom of Castle Street - the road on which we came in to the town, and where the riders would soon zoom past.

The crowd was already quite numerous and there were loads of people who like us had cycled along to see the spectacle amongst the normal throng of Saturday shoppers. The closer it got to the riders appearing the denser the crowd became until it was approaching the numbers of the Olympic Road Race when that came along last year - although in West Byfleet they had barriers to keep people away, here it was like the Tour de France - a free for all with regards to where you wish to stand.

Not a bad crowd, and this was with 20 minutes to go before the race arrived!

About 15 minutes before the riders arrived a couple came and stood beside Pini and myself - and I saw the guy was wearing a Reykjavik Marathon shirt! Naturally I couldn't help but start a conversation seeing as a mere few weeks ago the 2 of us had unknowingly been running the same race and now we were standing in a different country next to one another!

The guy was originally from South Africa and both he and his girlfriend are avid runners and are getting into the whole marathon thing. He has run 16 and she has 13 to her name and slowly but surely they re chipping them off in the hope of one day reaching the 100 club - exactly as Pini and myself are. They mentioned the events they were looking to compete in later this year, with him flying out to Berlin for that race in a couple of weeks. They had both run the Farnham Pilgrim the previous week as well… Its a small world!

The race had a small break-away on the front of it, so they came through after preceding waves of police motorbikes and event security motorbikes, sponsors cars and media motors. Then a few minutes later came the peloton. Camera at the ready I managed to get a few shots of them as they came past, however I didn't manage to get Wiggo this year. You can just make out a small fleck of yellow that is his helmet in the background of one of the photos, and you can kind of see Mark Cavendish, although I did get an 'in action' shot of Nairo Quintana who finished 2nd in this years Tour de France.

The last rider in white on the left is Mark Cavendish, with the tiny smudge of yellow just over his shoulder being Sir Bradley Wiggins!

Nairo Qunitana in full blurry flight.

 As soon as the riders had pedalled in to Farnham, they were gone and there were the hollow cheers for all the team cars and of course the 'broom wagon' bringing up the rear.

The front of the team Sky Jaguar.

After bidding goodbye to the couple of runners and wishing them all the future luck with their runs, a swift pint of the local Hog's Back Brewery 'T.E.A.' was consumed in the Nelson. The Hog's Back is the road from Farnham in to Guildford over which the Tour of Britain riders were riding as I supped, so it seemed only right!

Onto the bikes it was for the return home and the immediate mile long climb to the top of the big hill, although it does mean you get a long blast downhill almost immediately afterwards - on which I managed to get my speed up to a touch over 40mph.