Written by: Chris Wallis
Sunday, July 20, 2008

Having got to the start very early, the only benefit of l'hotel la Voiture for the night, i was left cursing a colour blind gendarme who couldn't figure out the passes so parked up in the wrong place, for me at least, to kill some time and study the day.
With two proper climbs and one being the finish definitly a finish only day, and try and find some special bikes brought out for the Alps.

By the time the tour village was coming to life so were the grey clouds that had been massing over head for the last hour or so, a quick rumage through my bag and th wet weather gear was out and despite sticking rigidly to the shorts and flip flops rule
i headed off well wrapped up for the weather. The teams were also not keen on the this weather very few riders making any appearence until the last minute, the Cassie d'painge team but hadn't even turned up by the time i had left.
So a few shots of bikes and wet crowds i decided to head off, avoid the race rotue and going h'ors course to the finish. The plan was to get to the entrance point of the race course before the caravan and despite some italian job driving that micheal cane would have been proud of
i was denied, and then somehow got waved into a big gap into the caravan. After getting stopped, and praying that i wasn't going to get told off or punished i finally made it to the finish.
In the rush to get from the car to the finish line i failed to take any more than the essentials, not see waterproofs for me of the cameras as essential at that sunny point.
I managed to set mysefl up with a nice spot on the stantion looking over the finish and with the use of my bib to keep me dry and some barriers to keep the cameras dry i waited and was duly rewarded with some nice shots of the finish and manged to stay reasonably dry.
I then waited for more than a few hours for the moutain to clear so i could make the long journey to my hotel for the next two nights, getting in just after midnight and then sleeping till noon the next day

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