Tour of Britain: the London stage

Central London hosted the final stage of the Tour of Britain today.   The streets were closed to traffic, creating a 100 kilometre, 16-lap cycling course around Trafalgar Square, the Strand, Whitehall, Piccadilly Circus and Regent Street.   I spent the afternoon watching the race on Regent Street.

The Tour of Britain started last Sunday in Glasgow.  More than 100 cyclists competed in stages in  Cumbria, Cheshire, Wales, Bath,  Devon and Bristol, and then the final stage in London.  An English rider, Steve Cummings, won the race.   I took this photo of him just before the start of today’s stage.

The next photo shows Steve Cummings in the leader’s yellow jersey, alongside two other British riders – Mark Cavendish (in the Dimension Data team jersey) and Bradley Wiggins (easily identifiable in the Team Wiggins jersey).

Today was a lot of fun to watch, with the riders reappearing every few minutes as they completed their laps much quicker than I expected.  But their speed makes them hard to photograph, so my favourite image from today was this photo of Mark Cavendish, standing beside the team bus, and not sprinting away in a blur.