Deidre's Blog: Le Tour de Londres

On the last day of my parents visit, we were privy a new experience in London. The Tour de France was due to start it’s epic race in London for 2008.
On the Saturday before the race began, London had transformed itself and put on its cycling gear. The first thing we noticed was that you could walk in the middle of the road on West

minster Bridge without being tooted at by cars, busses, vans, trucks and other four wheelers.

The tour village where the press and cyclists were staying was just next to St James Park. We took a walk there and looked at tour buses, the mechanics preparing the bikes for the next day and even saw one of th

e cyclists signing autographs.

I was lucky enough to have the first day of the race cycle right past my apartment blocks! So all I did on that Sunday morning was role out of bed at the allotted time, pull on track pants and a tee shirt and wonder outside.

I stood right by the barrier watching the parade of colour stream past. First it was th

e cyclists themselves who flashed by so fast, I barely saw them. Then for at least 20 minutes after came the tour busses and cars with spare bikes. It was full of colour, green bikes, red buses, orange bikes, yellow cars, blue buses – it went on and on.
It was quite an amazing experience!

Photo 1: Mom and Dad on Westminster Bridge