PBK office trip
We are always sacrificing our time here at Probikekit towers trailing round the world getting the inside scoop for you our trusty friends and readers.
You may have seen the face book pictures of our trip to stoke for the tour of Britain??
Well I thought I would give you the low down on the behind the scenes activity, about the set up and what goes on at the event finish in the hours before the climax of the days stage.
Dawn its still dark and its very cold the men from the barrier suppliers are busy fencing off 3 KM of road for the run in to the finish, and the whole mobile village is setting up,
We have a finishing gantry across the line then to the left is the UCI timing and commenseurs offices, opposite we have the brooding mass of the Press box (a sinister looking big black glass box) Just down the hill is the VIP area for dignitaries official guests and freebie bagging scum (yep did you see us in there?) above the press cube is the doping control then we have the stage for the presentations. Just off the course was the Prostate cancer bicycle challenge watch the video !! (the Prostate Cancer Charity sponsor the Tour of Britain) Trade tents (thank you Saddleback and Soreen) and the ubiquitous burger vans.
We got to the finish area around 11 am and after driving the course and destroying the barriers parked up to have a nosey, a drink of coffee (i.e. beer and rose) and eat the buffet in the VIP area.
The official car park was full of the team buses, this is a great place to see what teams have the biggest budgets and clearly Rabobank and Katusha are winning the battle of bling with full 60Ft team buses parked up.
Back to the finish area and the early crowds where entertained by Joe Fisher (www.joefisher.biz) keeping a large crowd and a thousand school kids entertained is by far the hardest job in the village and Joe did it superbly by the end I reckon he had worked harder than the stage winner.
There was a GO bike event on for the local school children giving some early race action and Chris was soon out of breath and tongue tied after being intimidated by the beautiful Lauren Bason, one of two podium girls and also a cycle rider.
After the race has finished it really is all hands to the pump to disassemble the whole village and get it in the wagons for a 5 h drive to the next finish town, its quite something to see the team busses pulling out 10 mins after their riders have crossed the line.
The organisation really is impressive with upward of 40 police outriders, team cars, team vans, neutral service, press trade sponsors and hangers on arriving setting up, packing up and moving on all within 10 hours , it really is a case of the riders having the easy life sat in the eye of a storm they really can’t appreciate.
A massive thank you to Saddleback (suppliers of the Sram neutral service and the UK distributor for Sram, Zipp, Castelli and Felt) who where our congenial hosts and to the Tour of Britain organisation for unwittingly allowing us unrestricted access.
If you need a compare give Joe an email, if you need a podium girl get in touch with Lauren and for all other cycling related enquiries you know the place to visit: www.probikekit.com.
Oh and thank you M&S great travelling sweets them Percy Pigs, but can we have some for free please?
The photo gallery is here
Fatty
