Britannia Rules the Roads

Today I jumped off the train home from Lausanne and was able to take in a pro-cycling event. Having caught the bug on Bastille day last summer when we went to see the Tour de France, I thought I would go and check out the final hour of the Prologue for the tour of Romandie, a five day event taking in the French speaking part of Switzerland. Many big names were there and although there was nowhere near as much pomp and atmosphere as the Tour de France it was fun nonetheless (for someone who was interested in this kind of thing). I did manage to snap some photos with the camera in my phone.

There was a small tented village where the sponsors were promoting their wares. However, most of the freebies were gone (except giant green hands which I already possess) – I was able to try a small piece of Gruyere cheese…! What was cool was you could get up close and personal with some of the riders. I saw the flaming galah that is Australia’s Robbie McEwen who was larking around and very courteous about people taking photos (and friendly too). Compare that with the miserable persona of eventual winner Andreas Kloden who just sat on his bike and warmed down paying no attention to any of the interest in him, surrounded by two mean looking eastern European bodyguards who would not think twice about snapping you in half if you tried to tell Andreas a joke and inject some humour into his life.

In any case, it was a gorgeous late afternoon and the cyclists were pumped to attack the 2km circuit up and down the Rive Droite (the north-west side of the lake in Geneva). In the end it was a Brit who posted the fastest time, the talented Mark Cavendish, giving this ex-pat an extra sense of satisfaction that he took a slight detour on the way home. He no doubt won because the circuit ran in and anti-clockwise direction, and clearly being British, he cycled on the shorter left side of the road…