Cool and wet - but at least I'm in Toulouse

It's around 7:00 pm and I've just had my first taste of the tour up close.  The TGV rather than the bus proved to be a master stroke as our hotel was right on the finish line of today's stage in Toulouse.  When I arrived at 1:30 the roads were already closed and as I sit here in the foyer more than 12 hours after the bus left they are still out there on the road somewhere. 

Even in the rain, the crowds came out today.  I have started what I suspect will be a non-sustainable habit of collecting freebies.  From around 3:00 onwards people paraded up and down the finishing straight handing out all kinds of schwag.  I think the rain dampened their enthusiasm somewhat as most of the schwag givers seemed pretty keen to hand out their quota of stuff and find somewhere dry to hide.  I managed to pick up a couple of big green hands, and around 4 or 5 hats.  I also picked up numerous squishy containers of pulped fruit, heaps of little cheeses, half a dozen bottles of water and a couple of packets of chips.  So much for the diet!!

Like a little squirrel I was able to duck back up to the hotel room and add to my little stash before venturing out again in search of more schwag. Eventually I found a spot on the barriers at the 150 m mark and waited for the peleton to arrive.  When they did, it was all over in a flash  Mark Cavendish won the sprint, while the rest of the peleton rolled by looking cold and wet and wanting to be somewhere warm and dry.

After the finish I had a bit of an explore around the finish line looking to do a Chaser style bonehead for the SBS cameras.  No success today - but I might make that my personal challenge for the rest of the trip.

Tomorrow we ride at long last - the forecast is for showers clearing (I think) so when we ride this .....

.... the Col d'Aspin hopefully the roads will be dry on the descent.  The Col d'Aspin is the last climb in tomorrow's stage and I think the plan is that we'll head ride the course over the climb then head down to our hotel and after that back to the finish line.  They tell us that this is an easy start to our trip and given that the next day is a monster I'll be riding as conservatively as I can.

Given that the bus hasn't arrived yet it looks like I'm eating alone tonight  .......