After the first of serious climb of the tour, Stage 12: 197.5 km Castelsarrasin to La Mongie, US postal are back in charge. Although Basso won the stage, Armstrong's second place has pushed him within touching distance of the race yellow jersey Thomas Voeckler, who incidentally has shown himself more than worthy of wearing yellow.
Photos above taken with my new camera, a Nikon Coolpix 3200.
Had a fantastic weekend watching stages 7 and 8. Spent a great afternoon in St Brieuc on the barriers, with a grand parade of cycling through the ages, followed by the publicity caravan, throwing out caps, badges and coffee sachets... then a couple of hours later, as the atmosphere started to hot up, the team cars and commissaires vehicles, followed by the riders themselves, gunning at great speed up the final kilometre from la flame rouge. The stage was won by Pozzato from Fassa Bortolo, a young rider announcing himself on his first tour.
The next day, after a peaceful morning and a quick look at the map, we went to L'Enseigne Verte, which is a fourth category climb a few kilometres east of Briec. The turnout was amazing, much more than we had anticipated, with camping cars lining the route up to the summit. Although St-Brieuc had been great, the atmosphere at the roadside was much more intense. As the team cars sped through on thier way the finish, the helicopters hovered overhead and the sound from the crowd was getting louder and louder. Suddenly I whipped my hand from the road as the riders brushed past, quickly followed a few seconds later by the peloton. My heart was racing as they vanished out of sight.
