More Tour of Britain stuff. They've certainly got their money's worth out of us
Published by Halverde on 9/03/2006 at 23:04.
Let's all try and erase the badness of stage five from our memories and just focus on today's final stage. Deal? Good.
We all knew the stage was going to run along the Tour de France route for next year, and we all knew that it was going to finish with several laps of a small circuit. What we didn't know was that it'd turn into a pseudo track event, with riders taking laps out and others losing huge amounts of time because fixing punctures took so long (there's a tenuous link to tubular tyres there, see). We've not been so perplexed by a road event since the first time we saw Paris-Roubaix, so it's probably fitting that today's winner was Tom Boonen. Rumour has it that his sprint was tequila fuelled, although the last time we tried to ride a bike after drinking tequila we fell off in front of a group of teenage girls and nearly got run over because we forgot to turn our lights on, so maybe don't try it before your next big race.
The verdict on the BBC's coverage of today's stage:
It was good. Although it was a shame that they filled the gap inbetween the stage finishing and the presentations with 45 minutes of people mincing around on horses and Jo Brand making a big deal out of running three miles, it wouldn't be a televised cycling event unless there was a bit of disappointment.
The verdict on the Tour of Britain as a whole:
Fantastic. All the boring fat track riders using the internet to whinge because the hills weren't hard enough couldn't even put the event down (and, on the contrary, gave us an opportunity to use the oft-overlooked retort, "How many hills are there on the track, Chunky?"). Hammond and Pozzato took fabulous victories; Willems provided us with controversy; an opportunistic breakaway from three promising young riders proved decisive; Chicchi's duel with Cavendish just about saved a disasterous stage; and Boonen nabbed the final stage whilst wearing the rainbow jersey. There's never been a better line up of riders in this country, and you all know it. Roll on next year.
We all knew the stage was going to run along the Tour de France route for next year, and we all knew that it was going to finish with several laps of a small circuit. What we didn't know was that it'd turn into a pseudo track event, with riders taking laps out and others losing huge amounts of time because fixing punctures took so long (there's a tenuous link to tubular tyres there, see). We've not been so perplexed by a road event since the first time we saw Paris-Roubaix, so it's probably fitting that today's winner was Tom Boonen. Rumour has it that his sprint was tequila fuelled, although the last time we tried to ride a bike after drinking tequila we fell off in front of a group of teenage girls and nearly got run over because we forgot to turn our lights on, so maybe don't try it before your next big race.
The verdict on the BBC's coverage of today's stage:
It was good. Although it was a shame that they filled the gap inbetween the stage finishing and the presentations with 45 minutes of people mincing around on horses and Jo Brand making a big deal out of running three miles, it wouldn't be a televised cycling event unless there was a bit of disappointment.
The verdict on the Tour of Britain as a whole:
Fantastic. All the boring fat track riders using the internet to whinge because the hills weren't hard enough couldn't even put the event down (and, on the contrary, gave us an opportunity to use the oft-overlooked retort, "How many hills are there on the track, Chunky?"). Hammond and Pozzato took fabulous victories; Willems provided us with controversy; an opportunistic breakaway from three promising young riders proved decisive; Chicchi's duel with Cavendish just about saved a disasterous stage; and Boonen nabbed the final stage whilst wearing the rainbow jersey. There's never been a better line up of riders in this country, and you all know it. Roll on next year.
