Tour De France 2012

The Tour de France is passing through Belgium again and even closer to our place than 2 years ago. So of course we had to go, even though we had not seen our bed very much last night. We kicked ourselves out of bed and drove to the east of the country.   Just like list time we could approach the parcours of the race until about 1 km form the 1-street village where we'd post ourselves.

The publicity caravan was a bit early and rushed at high speed through town.

Just outside the village on a small slope we joined the international crowd along the road and started to wait for the race to come closer with the faint zooming of the bikers meeting at the race track of Francorshamps just across the next hill in the background. The sun peeped through the clouds now and the landscape was gorgeous so we didn't mind the waiting. Even not when the Philippe Gilbert fans were having a barbecue next us and we had not had lunch yet.

When the helicopters could be heard and slowly approached us from Francorchamps, there were ever more people and the police even wanted to take a picture of the relax but enthusiastic atmosphere.

Around 2PM , slightly behind schedule, the first 6 came by

And 4 minutes later the pelleton who was riding rather meekly....television emision would only start in 5 minutes (the extra 5 helicopters just took air at the other side of the valley).  It made it much more easy to photograph them :p. But if you want tension, you clearly should not post yourself in the first 90 minutes of the   etape but in the finale like the previous 2 times we saw the tour.

Fabian Cancellara in yellow jersey, tour de France 2012, day 2

As always before you've realised it, they've all zoomed by and we could pack up and head home again, to catch our well deserved nap.