The past few days we’ve crashed away from all the craziness in a little town about 30k from the start. Today however we had to enter the fray for the team presentation. Until now the magnitude of this race hadn’t fully sunk in, but after the presentation and all of the accompanied nonsense it is finally feeling like a bike race. It’s amazing the resources that go into this one day. We have more staff here than would be at a grand tour, 5 soigneurs and 6 mechanics, and then there are those with the sponsors and VIP crew as well. With all of the equipment involved there are two trucks, the bus and the camper, a sprinter van, 6 cars… It’s nonsense. Felt has styled is out with some custom bikes, just for the day, with a longer wheelbase, a kicked out fork, and some serious reinforcement throughout. Zipp built up some “clydesdale” 303 wheels that are glued up with prototype 27c pave vittoria tires. Slick. And clothes - well, there will be a lot of em on, as it’s looking a bit burly on the weather front. And they’ll all be cooked after a day in the mud. With all of that there’s no pressure at all… 24 hours from now we’ll see if it all paid off. Fingers crossed for good legs all around, especially for sir Maggy, and a big helping of luck as well with the weather headed this way. I guess it’s only fitting for a first attack on the cobbles. Yesterday when we pre-rode some of the early stretches with nice dry mud almost like grout between the stones they weren’t too bad. Tomorrow should be a different story all together… Thanks to everybody for the notes of encouragement - we’re looking forward to adding a bit of argyle to the show.

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.