Tour of Britain Stage 6 Roll Out in Barrow

Tour of Britain Posters

Sweeping the streets on Thursday getting ready for the Tour of Britain.

The statue in Schneider Square has been decorated in readiness.

Henry Schneider dressed in green. Is he impressed?

Friday arrives and this police man was kept busy directing three lanes of traffic,  his piercing whistle was almost as loud as his shout at dozing motorists to get them moving.  Nearly time for him to move off as the helicopter appears overhead and the other bike marshals power down Roose Road.

  Here comes the main event.

Katusha Alpecin, Dimension Data and Direct Energie

This was the point I realised I hadn't put a sports mode on my camera - so slow, ergh, unlike the whizz of racing bikes heading for the coast road and the racing.

Direct Energie and the other team cars roll on past and we move off the windy corner. 

Tour of Britain Stage Two

Timing a rolling road block relies on communication and here is one of the police bikes waiting for the next team member to take over. This means that our wait is about over to see the Tour of Britain Riders 

 The first to arrive were the breakaway here led by the An Post rider Sean Downey.  The spectators are well wrapped against the weather which had been only showery until the riders approached and then it became a deluge and it looked as though they would have their own personal rain cloud throughout the day.

This next highlight of Stage Two of the Tour of Britain in September was indicated by a rather jolly Peleton Safety official bantering with the crowd jumping off the bike to run to the junction

to indicate the direction to the peleton powering up the hill out of Whitehaven 

Bernard Eisel leading the Sky Team and his expression and rhythmic determination to hunt down the breakaway did not alter throughout the stage. 

Mark Cavendish, the Manx Missile tucked away in the middle of the peleton. Hills are not his metier but give him a nice flat finish line to aim for and whoosh.

The events marshal rides up the A595 as the last of the bunch cross the road ahead turn left,  81 of the 186 miles done but lots to come on this trip from Carlisle to Kendal down the coast and across the Lake District.

The Australian rider Steele Von Hoff must have had some mechanical problem as he was the last rider and out of contact, he danced on the peddles trying to regain the peleton.  My camera was nicely steaming up at this point. The breakaway would lead for much of the stage until they hit Honister Pass which was a popular place to watch the tour, but one that produced the worst of the Lakeland weather so its 1 in 4 gradient was also part stream.  I watched that part of the race on the TV, not outside on the big screen in Workington but gradually drying out in the comfort of a pub.

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at T