Despite the result i had a cracking day, we rode out of Guildford on mostly closed roads along with hundreds of other cyclists. Wasn't sure what lay ahead with regards to access, believing we would encounter the sheriff of Nottingham telling us to turn around and take the long route.
Very pleased to be able to cycle some of the actual route and to ride all the way there.
The festival was great, and much much better than we expected for free!
amongst all the trade stands we found Ben swifts 2011 TDF bike, Tommy V's 2011TDf bike in yellow and Fabien's 2012 TDf bike in yellow
We wandered out into the masses for the race, finding a spot on a roundabout at the bottom of Box hill, here the organisation was spot on and on par with the TDF. After they passed through we then tried our luck at getting onto Box hill. We walked for about a mile when we found a path that took us into Mickleham.
Must have got lucky too as we found ourselves behind a tiny 1ft wall in the grounds of Box hill school, cracking spot with no one standing in front!!
Here the organisation was piss poor, a few police and what i think must have been put on by G4s security, they just seemed to stand still doing nothing, this resulted in people walking in the road [ many nearly getting run over by fast moving police / team cars ] we also had a pub near us with pissed spectators all over the place, 4 times during the 8 laps we saw cars having to make emergency stops and people in the road in front of riders.
Just glad we didn't have any major incidents, can you imagine the headlines if a pissed spectator caused a pile up at a olympic event.