Leeds > Harrogate > Leeds 0 miles

July 05, 2014

Leeds > Harrogate > Leeds 0 miles

Rest Day Number One. Much enjoyed.

After cranking out 240 miles over the last 3 days, we took a breather. We spent last night, and tonight, at Peter and Mia's home in Leeds. They are great. Peter rode from his home here in Leeds, UK to Calcutta, India 2 summers ago. His only legitimate time off the bike was in Pakistan when the police picked him up and forced him to use alternative travel methods. Mia is from Slovakia, works as a dental assistant and made great chocolate cake, lasagna and the like. They are off to a cycling holiday in Holland next week.

But let's get to the chase. The Grand Depart of the Tour de France left out of Leeds and traveled 125 miles to Harrogate (which is 18 miles away - that's how races often are). Getting into Leeds and to the start of the race was tough - a projected 2 million mad cycling fans all trying to get a glimpse of their British heros: Froome and Cavendish (although Mia was rooting for Sagan). Planning was poor on our part and we never actually got to the start of the race. So many people jamming all the roads, we made it to all the team cars, but then pedestrian traffic came to a stand still. The peloton left and I only had a quick glimpse of Alberto Contador (which did send chills down my spine). With a somewhat failed 'grand depart' attempt, Katy and I raced to the train station (along with 250,000 other folks) to get up to Harrogate for the finish.

We got to Harrogate at about noon, expecting a 4:30pm race finish. We walked 1km down the road to find a place where we could be on "the rail" to get an obstructed view of the race. We would have liked a spot at the finish line, but those folks had been out since 3am. I can only compare it to my days in Vegas hoping to get on "the rail" for a Phish show. Only one big difference exists - with Phish, getting on the rail guarantees an entire evening of mind blowing music. With the Tour you are guaranteed 45 seconds of "whoa, that was fast".

And after waiting for four and a half hours they came, and "whoa, that was fast". I'll let the video speak for that. Here we have Fabian Cancellara's attempted break (right side of the screen) while Omega Pharma Quick Step leads out for Mark Cavendish (who unfortunately takes a nasty spill in 700 meters).

[jwplayer playlistid="328"]

After dinner in Harrogate we went back to the train station, still a couple hour wait as the thousands of fans bombarded the train station off to York - the start of Stage 2. We quickly jumped on a double decker bus and enjoyed a beautiful ride back to Leeds. Except, after about 5 miles the bus broke down. Not quite what I expected in England. Jumped out of the bus and did what I do best, hitch hike. Picked up by a friendly Scotsman who took us straight to our WS home in Leeds.