Tour de France

I went over to Ghent in Belgium to see the second stage of the Tour de France come in. So after standing for hours along the fence about a kilometre from the finish, taking lots of bad photos, when the racers finally came, my camera was dead. Nevertheless, it was all effing awesome and I'd to see more of the tour. Before the riders even come there were probably a couple of thousand competitive and recreational riders coming in waves throughout the afternoon.... including these two little guys racing for the finish..... they got lots of cheers...




Then were lots of sponsors cars and floats with beautiful young French women on them throwing out loot...


These teenagers across the street had the bright idea of holding their umbrella out upside down and it paid off, they got tons of free crap.

Watching the non-Tour riders on their bikes around town after the finish I really came to realize how riding a bike for many Europeans isn't much different than walking, they have so much natural control over their bikes, it's not uncommon in Germany to see people riding their bikes with a beer in one hand and a smoke in the other crossing the trolly tracks and weaving through traffic all with no hands on the handle bars.