Tom and Bob shared the photofinish experience! at the Tour of the South in 2005.

Bob's sent a few pictures and included some notes from the first couple of stages which I thought were worthy enough to go here.

OK, which bright spark booked the camera for a stage finish like this one?

This is Gold Hill (right) and shows the approach to the line on stage 1 and at first I thought it was the Lincoln Grand Prix, but at least they are sensible and never ask for photofinish.

It is a dead end and the only way out for the riders was to get off the bike and walk along a passageway to the main road or back down the hill. There was just enough room for the van in the yard at the back of the Town hall so an inverter and a battery (with cover) was set up at the bottom of the tripod rather than run a mains cable across the road.

You can just about make out the camera on its' tripod, and the data cable went high up from the camera across the road to the black drainpipe on the left side of the picture and then down and along the footpath to the van in the yard.

As it was pouring with rain all morning tape could not be used for the finish line and as the hill was in a conservation area spray paint also could not be used, so it was back to the good old trick of using Vim (or was it Ajax) put down just before the riders were due and hope it was not washed away. Not only was it a steep cobbled hill but it rained all day although the rain eased before the finish and the crowd came out to watch. Bob was at the back of the van and in the end had to get the chair out to stand on so as to see over the crowd to do the capture. Bob had the camera speed set on 1300 but he suggests that if we go back again the speed could come down to about 800 to give us better pics. Saying that he was still able to read all the numbers and the film was only used to confirm the judges list and to give a time gap for each rider. You can see some of the elongated images below, and I have to say they are really clear. The colours are pretty good, Bob - some of mine are totally unnatural.

To emphasise the severity of the climb, the picture (above) shows the winner of this cobbled stage.

Quite a lot of the finishers on stage 1 resorted to running (or walking) across the line, which made the reading of the picture much harder. However it was the type of finish which the judges could handle with no difficulty whatsoever. The sample Lynx image can be seen below.

Some, however, needed a helping hand. Last man to finish the stage was number 26, seen below getting a push from Chief Judge Trevor Hughes. Of course, Trevor was probably just steadying him in case he fell off.

Nice to see that not all UCI officials are 'Jobsworths' and are prepared to allow a little flexibility.

When the last rider was in it was time to pack it all away and Pete the barrier man was backing his big van up the hill before his assistant stopped him just in time before he got to the data cable. If he had gone any further there would have been a tripod and camera plus a length of drainpipe on the floor!!.

Lucky or what?

It's not only me who does 'funny' things with the van. Pictured left is the finish area for stage two - nice grass area but not very wide.

In Bob's own words:-

"The finish was hard to find, it was not marked when I got to where I though it was, so I went on just that bit more to check and then turn the van around in a field gateway, looking in the mirror I turned the wheel the wrong way and the back wheel was in the ditch, try as could it would not come out. Try the RAC or a local farmer or hide out the way....and then along came Doug Collins putting out signs for the race. He had a small van and we tried as hard as we could but it would not come out. Then with the road blocked along came a Jewson lorry - he had to stop we were in the way! He had heard about the race and even had a rope to get the van back on the road. Lucky or what again?

There was not enough grass verge to put the van on at the finish line, but there was a gate to a field which would be opened to us about an hour before the finish, so the kit was put up on a BT manhole cover as they were doing sprints every 2nd lap. The farmer did come in the end and the van was on grass again (pointing down hill).

As soon as the first 3 were confirmed, we unpluged the lap top and went across the road into the van, read the rest and printed the result! It was a good job that it did not rain. to cap it all I got lost going home and had to get the map out."