cerealjoe | They hit the pavés

Finally! After hours and hours and hours of waiting and talking my lovely Aussie neighbours on either side and translating stuff for them and watching the kiddies go by and watching the caravane go by and then waiting some more (all that summed up in the first posts under this tag) it's time for the official cars to go by and finally for the BMC train to hit the pavés on Champs-Elysées. I'm not kidding about the waiting, first photo taken around the Champs with all the people already waiting at 10:26 and the first photo of the riders was taken at 16:33. Granted there was a food stop and just some general walking for me so I wasn't sitting there for six hours, unlike some.

(also these posts do not contain a lot of photos and they're all resized excessively, they can all be seen though over here on Tumblr with some random comments and in much bigger - and you can find all the riders tagged in the photos on this little tag page!)

There he is! Also George. "Un grand monsieur" as some say... to be understood in multiple ways, I suppose.

The Bros because what's a TdF post without the Schlecks and a mention of Fabian's fabulousness?
PS: Fabianese is now an official language in 2349837 countries.

Some dude in green. Rumor has it he will be on a certain Brad's team next year.

A bit of white for the cocorico touch.

Not a very much hidden fact: I do want him to keep his World Champ jersey. Or for another Norwegian to get it. Because Thor is made of pure awesomeness and he can win mountain stages even though reason would have it that he can't.

I would just like to point out that there are three freaken national champ jerseys in this one photo (and a certain Spaniard named Berto). And "Ramunas Navardauskas" is one heck of a cool name, go Lithanian national champ!