The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2394 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

I didn’t know that Simon was familiar with Harrogate, nor that he was on very good terms with several people there who’d booked us seats at the finish. We had a quick wander round the town but didn’t buy anything, though I was tempted to buy myself a yellow, black and orange cycling shirt celebrating the fact that the TdF visited Yorkshire.

The place was swarming with cyclists and we were fortunate to be able to park the minibus in someone’s drive—one of Simon’s friends—we don’t just go around parking in the drives of complete strangers, or even strange completers—and Si’s pal was a bit strange. He didn’t wear women’s clothes or anything like that, not that that is strange, I wear women’s clothes; well to be honest I wear my clothes which just so happen to be women’s—oh forget it.

Back to Quentin—sadly with a name like that, he’s bound to be slightly bonkers if not totally so—as it turned out to be. He was very nice, well turned out and his house was very—um, individual. He didn’t sleep in the bath or anything, he slept in a four poster bed which was reputed to have belonged to Queen Victoria, the monarch not the public house. His lounge was floor to ceiling covered in book cases but they were full of comics—he collects Marvel and DC comics—Superman, Batman and so on, he has thousands and apparently they are worth thousands. Well Danni was enraptured and would happily have spent the weekend looking at stupid comics, except for one thing, they were too valuable to be handled, but Quentin has scanned all of them onto a digital data base, so she’d have been stuck in front of a computer all day long.

I think comic collecting, there’s probably some term for it apart from potty, is primarily a boy thing—doesn’t interest me one bit as you will no doubt have worked out—but Danni nagged me to let her come back after the race to look at the collection. I gave no promises. After parking in Quentin’s driveway, did I say he had a rather large house, we left the minibus next to his Range Rover, one of the compact types which look rather nice though cost rather a lot. From there we walked to the town centre—most of the roads were closed and had been for some time—Trish and Livvie walking on ahead checking their Black Berrys—I think they planned to take the odd photo with them. I had my little camera, which would probably be no more use than the camera-phones, as we’d be too far away to get anything half decent.

It turned out we were about fifty or so metres from the end of the race, so I hoped we’d see Cav fire the burners and speed off to victory and the yellow jersey. We took our places with Quentin and Si standing behind us—yeah, it was a standing occasion, but we were lucky the spaces had been reserved.

We waited and waited and the kids whinged, Danni suggesting she could have been reading comics instead of looking at stupid people across the street from her. Cate fell asleep in Simon’s arms and astonishingly he held on to her, normally he gives her back to me.

After playing games on their phones the two girls discovered the batteries don’t last very long when used for such things, so by the time the race got close, they had flat phone batteries. I, on the other hand, hadn’t bothered taking pictures of the trade caravan, so still had a fresh battery in my camera. I tried not to look too smug.

Suddenly there were new collections of police and other race associated cars coming through and the helicopter was hovering not far away. The race director came through and I knew it was imminent, the sprint trains came whooshing into view and Cav wasn’t to be seen, then he was and the next moment he went over the handlebars taking down Simon Gerrans as well. Kittel, ever the opportunist took the stage with two of his main rivals out of it.

Cavendish lay there for several minutes with medical assistance, he was hurt and he was clutching his shoulder. I couldn’t believe it. My dream of seeing him win the opening stage and the yellow jersey were in tatters and I felt like I’d just sat in a dish of cold water, so how he felt I couldn’t begin to think. They eventually got him back on his bike but he looked in real trouble—and they wouldn’t let me near him to give him a hand.

I was so shocked by the fall that I didn’t take on board the rest of the riders, who got what, I’d have to catch up later. There had been several small crashes but Cav’s was the most serious and I had grave misgivings that he’d be riding the next day. I felt I could have fixed it for him but needless to say they wouldn’t let me anywhere near him.

Quentin took us all out to dinner which was very kind of him but after witnessing the crash, I’d lost some of my appetite. Which annoyed Simon, but there was greater annoyance to come.

We arrived at Holme Moss to watch the hill climb. It was fairly early but there were already thousands there and watching them cycling up the hill made me wish I’d brought a bike. We set up a station at the roadside after walking up the hill. This time I got to carry Cate when she got tired. We all carried our own folding seat, so at least we wouldn’t have to stand all the time.

We sat and watched the amateur riders ascend the hill in various fashions, some did it easily, some struggled and some little kids did it to huge applause from the increasing throng. I really wished I’d brought my bike and Danni said the same.

Then things began to happen, the cyclists were stopped riding down the hill and the vanguard of the caravan arrived. I checked with one of the Tour Makers, clad in a bright green jacket thing, what time things were supposed to happen and she gave me the official times telling me they were in Kirklees area.

The caravan arrived and Danni managed to catch a handful of red spotty hats which enabled all the kids to have one—they actually stopped complaining for a few minutes. Then we had the hiatus before the riders and once again the leading team cars came through and I’m sure I saw Dave Brailsford in the Team Sky one.

The excitement began to mount. The police came through and just before the riders, some great big tall and wide man stood in front of us. The girls immediately complained they couldn’t see anything, which was my situation as well. The human traffic obstacle began sighting his telephoto lens. Simon spoke to him—he’s big but this mountain of flesh made him look small.

“Are you going to stay there?”

“Yeah, what’s it to you?”

“You’re stopping my wife and children from seeing the race.”

“Tough.”

“You big buwwy,” declared Mima, a view I shared.

The riders approached and while I couldn’t see them for the obstruction of selfish flesh that barred my view, I could do something. I threw a ball of energy at his expensive Nikon camera which I knew I shouldn’t do, but it might help cure his selfishness. It zapped the electronics in his camera and also wiped anything off the card in it. I hoped he hadn’t downloaded them from the day before.

So day two was as disastrous as day one, though I did have the consolation of seeing shithead shaking and switching his camera on and off. I suspected, or rather hoped it was irreparable, I also hoped it was super expensive. Okay, as childish as he was but he started it. Simon wanted to follow him get his car number and bankrupt him. I told him that would be malpractice in the same way brawling in the street would have been.

On the way back to our car, he said quietly, “That bloke’s camera seemed to malfunction, you didn’t call up one of your angel friends to do that, did you?”

“Who moi?” I said with an astonishment that was deliberately disingenuous, at which he sniggered.