Sir Wiggo & the quickest sporting event ever…?

40 minutes was all it took today to see the ‘Tour of Britain’ cycle race as it passed through Cheshire, and that was only because it took 20 minutes to walk there and back! .

The third stage of the tour passed along the Crewe to Nantwich road, a 10-minute walk from our house. The road closure signs had appeared over the last couple of weeks and we watched the second stage through The Lakes on local TV last night. Alyson had gone shopping early in order to get across the road and into town before the closure. Today’s stage started in Congleton and according to the web site the riders would be at my viewing point in around 45 minutes – not bad considering it is 14 miles away.

11:42am – left home with my digital SLR camera and zoom lens, walked to the main road where a reasonable crowd lined the route – well one man & his dog anyway.

11:58am  After about a dozen police motorbikes went past in around five minutes I wondered if it was a motorcycle tour I had come to watch.

12:02pm A commentary car came past and helpfully explained that the four riders in the lead group would be coming soon, followed five minutes later by the main pack, or peloton as it is called.

12:04pm Sure enough the four riders appeared. I heard the crowd further up the road clapping and the distinctive sound of cheering schoolchildren..

Clearly the guy at the front was in need of a drink, and the one next to him, and at the back with the packs of gel, decided it was lunch time!

12:03pm As their support cars followed behind I wondered how many bikes four men could possibly ride…

12:09pm It was a good that the commentary car had told us about the gap as after what seemed forever, the cheering school kids signalled the arrival of the main pack. I was glad to have ‘continuous shooting’ mode on my camera, as they went past and down the road in less than 60 seconds…

I turned my camera round and just caught the back of the pack as they came past me.

12:10pm It was all over. More support cars loaded with even more bikes, several police motorcycles, two ambulances followed close by and disappeared down the road.

As I walked home I met Jill & Peter who had stood at the end of their drive to watch proceedings. It had been quite exciting we reflected, but we were pleased not to have driven a long way & waited for several hours to have seen 10 minutes of action.

I saw the junior school children who had clearly had a great time; let out of their lessons to bring posters and banners to cheer on the spectacle. The teachers at our local High School had decided not to open at all as the ‘traffic chaos’ caused by road closures from 11.00am to 12.30pm would prevent them getting to and from school. Well I  guess it seemed like a good reason to add an extra day to the summer holidays!

12:22pm  It was only after I arrived home and reviewed the pictures on my laptop, that I realised there was one featuring our most decorated cyclist and 2016 Olympic Champion, Sir Bradley Wiggins. I zoomed in and cropped the photo which is the one at the start of this article. You can see his self-named team shirt & the distinctive tattooed right arm. Such was the speed they were going I hadn’t seen him in real-time. Not much of a spectator sport I mused, but perhaps it would have been better viewed directly by my eyes and not through the camera’s viewfinder?

I called this blog ‘the quickest sporting event ever’, but there is a certain Usain Bolt who crowds travel for hours and thousands of miles to watch, and his event is over in less than 10 seconds!