Day One of the Tour

 Day One started with a round of Fireflies photos (which will be posted later) and a general showing off of camera equipment (it is a production-based event after all. The winner of best photo-bling was Barney with his quad-drone mounted camera...

The Fireflies Drone prepares for its maiden flight

Unfortunately it all went a bit wrong and the drone crashed into Lake Geneva on its photo-joutnalistic foray. Here you can see Barney has jumped in to rescue it. 

The Fireflies Drone is rescued from a watery grave

Meanwhile all the bikes were being tweaked and polished ready of the first day. The day was posted as being 126k with 4,000 meters of climbing. 

For the uninitiated - that's a big day.

The Trusty Steed - hand built by Italians!

The first climb of the day was Le Joux Plane - sunny and clear it was all going so well...

The Author on top of the first real climb of the Tour

And then we got to the top of Col de la Colombiere. This is a legendary Tour de France monster and really took its toll. As we reached the summit the clouds came in and it started to rain. A very hairy decent in the wet.

The Author (looking a lot more knackered) on top of the big climb of the day
Col de al Colombiere

The whole gang on top of Colombiere...