Tour de France - Le Grand Depart - Stage 1: London to Canterbury

Before the race began


The Race Leaders in Tenterden


The rest of the pack approaches


*See the rest of our pictures in the Web Album on the left!

Matt and I took advantage of the opportunity to see a leg of the first stage of the Tour de France on Sunday. We drove to Tenterden for a nice quiet spot to watch the riders. We got into town around 11:00am, bought some things for lunch later, and found a nice shaded spot to set our picnic mat down and wait for the race to come by. At around 12:30pm the Caravan started to come through. The Caravan is made up of 200 sponsors, vendors, and race partners that come through a city ahead of the riders to hand out free stuff. Sadly, they stopped right in the town centre but since we were about a mile out of the centre we only saw them zooming by at about 50 mph. Matt did get hit by a flying body-wash bottle, that a person chucked out at him at a high speed. LOL! At around 2:25pm the first five leaders came through and within minutes the mass of other riders sped past. It was only over in a matter of minutes and then everyone packed up to drive home. We didn't have to deal with a lot of traffic to and from the town and had a peaceful picnic out in the beautiful weather. It may not have been the huge celebration one would imagine but it was our chance to be a part of the Tour. I know that in London/Greenwich and Canterbury there was much more excitement as those towns were the start and finish of the first stage.


Notes about the Tour:

*Stage 1 of the Tour was 126-mile route from Greenwich to Canterbury
*There are 189 riders in 21 teams
*There are 20 stages of the Tour to be completed in 22 days (includes two days of rest)
*The Tour started in 1903 by L'Auto newpapers - keen to use cycling as an event to boost its circulation by staging a race around France
*The Tour de France is the world's most watched sporting event
*In the early years of the Tour the race comprised of just six stages - but the riders were expected to ride through the night, with no breaks for sleep.