Criterium July 2014 - Le Tour de France Edition | Page 38

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It seems I'm not alone in snapping 'selfies' whilst out on my bike.

As a group, we believe we’ve emerged from the darkness and now the nation prepares to celebrate a summer of cycling like no other with the Tour visiting us for its Grand Depart, something which after the disastrous events of 1974 when the majority of the peleton spent the night in prison cells at the airport, is almost as difficult to believe, as a boutique bicycle shop springing up in your local village.

But flagging in the slipstream way behind my professional counter parts, I wonder how I turned from a scruffy teenager into an individual who spends all his spare change on collecting mussettes and cycling caps that match each and every one of my outfits? Or why I often find myself browsing the internet looking for Bradley Wiggins’ Giro Emprie shoes, rather than talking to my friends about his exploits ascending Mount Diablo?

I think this may all have started for me with my dads bicycle. A couple of years ago now, he took up the sport and bought his first road bike - a De Rosa R838. Where as before I was happy to go out and ride around the lanes of Norfolk on my mountain bike in a pair of football shorts and a plain sports top,