Yet another tradition of the Tour de France is for the winner of the Yellow Jersey to have a glass of champagne on the gentle ride towards the Seine and the Champs Elysees. Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) true to his character, went to the team car and collected glasses of bubbly for each and everyone of his teammates who had worked so hard to get him into the Jersey and to keep him there. It was an act of bike handling to collect nine glasses and then to ride to each teammate to hand them a glass. Astana is one of the few teams that brought all nine riders all of the way around the Tour. They did come very close to losing Jakob Fuglsang on a crash coming down a mountain, but he got back on the bike and kept going all the way to Paris. When Nibali won the 2013 Giro d'Italia, they skipped the glasses and passed the bottle around, each taking big pulls off of the magnum as they rode along. It is amusing to know that his General Manager had criticized the Italian for failing to produce results in the earlier part of the season, Nibali simply let his legs give the answer. This is a small original watercolor and ink painting that is available through my artist website at
www.greigleach.com. This work and all of my paintings of the 2014 Tour de France will be included in my soon to be self published "Book de Tour." To learn more about the book project, to pre order your copy, or to discover how you can be a part of bringing the art of the Tour to print, pleas visit . There are some great incentives to get you to back the book starting for as little as $5 USD, everyone who pledges their support will have their name included in print on the Special Thanks page of the book. To purchase this particular painting, just follow the direct link at the end of this post. But don't you want all of the paintings in a book form? Of course you do!
http://www.greigleach.com/large-view/Tour%20de%20France%202014/2409002---199992/Painting.html#.U9WTfsvD_IU
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