Tag: tour de france

Blog posts from other people

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Sometimes, people send me stuff and I just have to blog it.

It’s UK election day today, and there’s basically no question in my mind who would be best at leading the country:

If you know, you know.

And, because I did a Manx post here and I did a Tour de France post here, this week, I was sent a suggestion that I had to combine the two and do a Mark Cavendish post here today.

I don’t follow cycling, but apparently he did a thing yesterday. And yes, he did:

Incredible scenes.
3:20 if you want to cut to (beyond) the chase.
And with many apologies for the errant apostrophe in the thumbnail.

Thanks Footy Group

AI – still not quite there

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Actually, AI is still quite a long way off if we’re looking at this sort of thing.

Here’s some AI video art shared on this IG account.

“Some of the most memorable and strange moments in the Tour de France over the years.”

It’s clearly not completely rubbish: there are the hills, the pastures, the white guys in lycra and the crowds looking on. If you were shown this and asked what event it was, you would say “It’s the Tour de France”, but I mean, it’s still really pretty awful, isn’t it? That wave of pixels when the peloton crashes at 13 seconds is really the only believable bit for me.

I did love one comment on the video:

If only we could freeze AI right where it is now, between creative utility and hilarity.

Which sums it all up just about perfectly.

(sorry about the big black bars – WP can’t handle reels very well.) 🙁

Day 174, part 2 – a good day

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Crossed a few jobs off the list today: painted a wall, got the DSTV fixed, organised the piano tuner to come and… well… can you guess?

I’m sure that there was something else as well. Oh yes, had a statement taken from me by the local police about a burglary down the road (I didn’t do it, but I did help catch the guys who did).

Nothing massive then, but sometimes it’s good to clear one’s mind of these menial tasks and so it’s free to concentrate on the important stuff, like writing blog posts and making plans for the weekend (more of that later).

And now I am watching a really brutal stage of the Tour de France. Some ridiculous gradients.

Not only is the scenery beautiful, it’s always nice to watch some cyclists suffering.

Another flying thing blog post

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(After we doubled (or trebled?) up in this one.)

Drug-taking. It’s all the rage in France at the moment. A number of fairly famous drug-takers are cycling around the country in their annual tour, and weirdly, people still want to watch them doing it.

People can be odd.

Best way to watch EPO-fuelled bike riding? Helicopter.

Helicopter times 3, in fact. With drunk pilots.

OK, so clearly, those pilots aren’t drunk. That was a slur against them and their profession in exactly the same way that saying the cyclists are cheating wasn’t. Those circling manoeuvres, avoiding each other and any surrounding buildings and countryside are the perfect way to film the race.

Other not drunk people who have made pretty patterns in the sky more locally include a BA Captain and Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden.

Bike trip

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This is superb.

What would you do if someone lent you the road bike that Bradley Wiggins won the 2012 Tour de France on? Run some red lights in Kalk Bay? Terrorise locals on Sea Point Prom? Or take it out for a quick spin around some really road bike unfriendly places in the UK, like Martyn Ashton does?

Much like Danny MacAskill’s Way Back Home (featured here back in August), I’m amazed at the abilities on show. And this is on a £10,000 carbon fibre road bike.

Incredible.

For those interested, the music is Sound of Guns “Sometimes”. And for a little bit of 6000 trivia, I’ve run across the lake featured at 3:35. I can also turn water into beer, given a few weeks and some rudimentary brewing equipment.