PTW

I notice that the Tour of Britain is conducting a team time-trial westwards from Ffairfach on Tuesday along the B4300. It's a working day for me, but how many other chances would I have to see professional cyclists tanking past at up to 70kmh? The road is dead straight. The teams fly past between about 1pm and 2:30pm.

According to Google you can cycle (and drive) through the Gelli Aur Country Park and emerge on a side road right beside the action. It would be a good trip for my new (to me) Scott CR1, which I bought on eBay. I'm starting to bond with it.

Well, it turns out Google is wrong, and you can't cycle through the grounds of Gelli Aur Country Park. But it was possible to spectate on today's TTT from the B4300. It was hot but I sat in the shade.

A small gallery of photos is here: https://bill.gannon.me.uk/galleries/Tour-of-Britain-2021/

It's only afterwards that I could identify some of the people in the pictures. Julian Alaphilippe isn't sporting a goatee, just for confusion, but he is number 12. The 'somebody' with Nils Eekhoff might be Nicholas Roche, but I didn't get his number.

UPDATE: Obviously it wasn't Julian Alaphillipe in the photo, since when he finished second on the Great Orme, he was very much in possession of said goatee. Quite appropriate for Llandudno. So my latest guess is that it must have been Yves Lampaert? Weird, because I have a photo taken about 1 second later that clearly shows number 11 (Cavendish) following number 12 (Alaphilippe), and not 13, 14, or 15. The only remaining member of the team is number 16 (Lampaert). It's almost like Alaphilippe and Lampaert decided to switch numbers.

I know no-one cares, but the Julian Alaphilippe mystery has now been sorted out. Hurray. One of the Mark Cavendishes is actually Davide Ballerini. I only worked this out because one of them is wearing gloves, which is a bit of a giveaway that they might just be different people.



Honestly. Equalise the amount of stubble, cover half their face with sunglasses, then take a picture of them at 70kmh, and the team-mates become almost identical. Therefore, the 'other' Alaphilippe is actually Mikkel Honoré. I can sleep more easily now.