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This is also a cute bunny: Nijntje wearing the yellow jersey. On account of the Tour de France starting in my home town Utrecht where Nijntje is also from.
I'm not looking forward to the hassle of 800.000 people coming to the city and all roads being blocked. But I do like Nijntje being the symbol.
The Tour de France came past the end of my road last year. I had to work from home that day, as there was no way of reaching the station. I joined the crowds to see the cyclists ride past. It was a great atmosphere, and a spectacular sight to see, all those riders flashing by.
Working from home is a good idea: that way I won't be annoyed as much by the whole thing. And I guess I'll have to walk over to go see since it'll be passing 40 m from my house.
Luckily you're tall - I had the foresight to take a lightweight 3-step ladder with me so I could see over the crowd. Otherwise I wouldn't have seen a thing.
Well, the Tour of California is somewhat less hassling and it has passed directly in front of the FoopPalace twice, in the last 5 miles to a stage finish in Avila Beach - my street has one of the area's most used Bike Lanes in San Luis Obispo County, a bike-heavy area. The first time, I was part of a group of almost a dozen neighborhood residents and I was able to sit comfortably in my patio chair and watch the action go by. They closed the road about an hour before (it was well scheduled to finish a couple hours before people started driving home from work) and we weren't sure when they were coming until a half dozen Highway Patrol cars and motorcycles 'cleared the way' a few minutes ahead. There were 10-12 riders in the breakaway group, with everybody else in the 'peloton' a couple minutes behind, then followed by the Caravan of SUVs carrying spare bikes for everybody and a sponsor's car which stopped briefly as one guy gave us all caps with their logo - I still don't know what SRAM stands for. This year, they returned; on-line stream coverage let me know when they were coming, but there were only 3 spectators in place this time, one of whom didn't know what was going on. There were no breakouts, so everybody was bunched together - there seemed to be even more vehicles in the Caravan and no free hats.
