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Tour of Britain, stage 6 climb of Chinnor Hill

The Tour of Britain 2014 stage 6 crosses from Bath to Hemel Hempstead. It was passing right through my small Oxfordshire village too. This is the land of the Chiltern Hills, there’s a category 2 climb just a couple of miles from here.

Time to grab the cameras, some choice lenses;EF 17-40mm f/4L USM and the EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM plus a few Speedlite flashes. Even two hours before the riders were due there were a lot of people waiting on the climb and the crowd just kept on getting bigger as the race approached.

Stage 6 eventual winner Brandle, with Dowsett and Stewart lead the peloton by over six minutes up the climb of Chinnor Hill
Stage 6 eventual winner Brandle, with Dowsett and Stewart lead the peloton by over six minutes up the climb of Chinnor Hill
As it turned out three riders, Mathias Brandle, Alex Dowsett and Thomas Stewart were over six minutes clear of the main field by the time the climb started. Also with three riders together I could go be on the inside of the hairpin with a wide-angle and flash as they turned in to the steepest gradient on the climb.

Stage 6 eventual winner Brandle, with Dowsett and Stewart lead the peloton by over six minutes up the climb of Chinnor Hill

The flash was essential to light the shadow side of the riders. I had checked on my Sunseeker app on my iPhone and it showed that the sun would be directly backlighting them when they were due to pass.

For the main race I had a few minutes to change position so I moved and to be honest the position was less interesting than this one.

“Sticky bottles”

Sticky bottle being handed out from the team car :-)

Sticky bottle being handed out from the team car 🙂

Of course the leaders and the main peloton were just stretching their legs on the relatively short climb, however one or two riders were a little behind the main group trying to keep up by riding in amongst the team cars. There did appear to be one or two pretty “sticky bottles” being handed out by team personnel 🙂