Taken the day off work to watch as they go right past my house. Should be able to high-five a rider If I leaned out the front window. That said they'll be going far too fast for me to get a good view here, so I'll be halfway up the single-carriageway hill round the corner (in the picture-skew Cotswold village of Horsley).
stage six will be coming through where i live (devizes 🙂 will be watching it for sure.
Live on itv 1 tomorrow afternoon and live in liverpool for those who live local, 8 laps around the sefton park and down the waterfront also on the player later on.
In Be "interesting" to see them all navigate Lower Howsell Road into Malvern. 😯
Why do they do that caterpillar thing? What's the advantage to that compared to a rider stopping and manning the junction until the convoy is through and then rejoining the back, like a through and off?Wondering the same. Also do they know by radio they need to stop and take over, or do they just stop when they get to the next guy waiting?
They discuss plans, routes and tactics each morning. I know when I have marshalled at big events there are a huge number of police and NEG rides but they are needed on some of the more complex bits of road. Also if the race splits they get stretched out and have to close even more road at a time.
They normally just beep or talk. A large number of them are on radios.
I don't know about the ToB but for races run on a large circuit (national champs etc.) We have a marshal on every junction. Unfortunately all you get is a flag, high vis, some signs but no legal power to stop people, only the police can do that - you just flag them down as they pull up to the junction and ask them to wait. Most people are very respectful if you take a few minutes to talk to them and explain. We always seem to get people on the courses. Often they have come out of a house or farm and it can be very difficult to get rid of them safely. We had a horse box at the last one. Narrow road and the driver was only renting it. Nearly touching the hedges on either side of the twisty road so reversing it out of the way wasn't going to happen.
Just off to Sefton park for the skyride and freebies, then the race, 2.15 at the pier head and to sefton park 8 times.
I went to the finish today and it was really good.
Sweetspot have really got things running really sweet and the facilities whilst waiting for the riders were good. The finish was really fast, but I've never sat at the finish before so it's probably a standard speed.
I went to the Buses after, Cav came back and had had an issue with his bike and went straight into the Bus so I went to the Deathstar where Wiggo was cooling down. Bernie Eisel came and and then Swifty and they all came out and I got signed autographs off them and Sir Dave.
The Garmin Sharp bus misjudged a gap when exiting the Car Park and smashed the bumper off an X5 Police Car 😯 the AA guys were Cable Tying it back together......
