Tour de France passes near me

[Franglais]

The Tour de France passed near my village this afternoon so I went out to have a look (in light rain). Out in the country you have the opportunity to get close to the competitors for a brief instant as they flash by so I chose myself a spot with a nice S-bend and not too many other spectators in the way. Waited and waited as more and more cars and bikes came past. Finally the helicopter announced the arrival of the competitors.

I got a series of the closely-bunched main group going past then - crash - a couple of tail-enders came off right in front of me. The whole fleet of cars behind screeched to a halt, the medic was there in a flash, and the police to keep the crowd away, the press motorcycles all lined up by the side. But nobody was injured and after a couple of minutes the guys carried on.

[Axle]

Tres Cool!

You got some nice shots in there. None of Lance?

[mtbbrian]

I for one am rather envious of you!
I would LOVE to watch The Tour in person!
Great photographs!
Thanks for sharring!
Brian

Thanks Lance!!!!!!!(x7)

[Old Timer]

Wonderful!! Thanks for sharing. I would love to have seen even a very few moments of this great event. I followed it closely on the radio but didn't have TV coverage.

[Franglais]

Hey Charles:

Most excellent images. That first one is magazine worthy. I am equally envious of your "being there" in the thick of the action.

Thanks for sharing these with us, they're awesome.

Best Regards,
Gene

I looked all over for an image of Lance but I think he was in the middle of the crowd. Some friends of mine were on the Champs Elysees for the finish and apparently it was really fun (but then they arrived at 10 in the morning for a finish at 5pm to be sure of having a good view).

Technical details - just the D70 at 400ISO in Sport mode with my old 70-210 (which seems to focus better on the D70 than on my N80). I was shooting single shot with the lens out at about 180mm.

You can understand how the professionals shoot off 50 frames at 8 frames/sec in an event like this, just in case something happens (which it did in my case).

Charles