Tour Stage 15: On the Straight & Wide

With a long, basically downhill stage, this one was marked as one for the sprinters.  The wide, straight, open roads should help the peloton judge the capture of the break away to perfection.  It should therefore be another day that will go to script with the only possible deviations coming if the legendary Mistral winds of southern France.  Strong cross winds can have the same effect on the peloton has any category one mountain, splitting the riders apart and causing huge time gaps.  So it was that the peloton let this two man break of Martin Elmiger (IAM Cycling) and Jack Bauer (Garmin Sharp) build up an eight minute lead, the peloton confident that they could be caught at will. 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 from the 101st Tour de France will appear in my soon to be self published collection in "Book de Tour."  To learn more about the book project, to pre order your copy, or to discover how you can become part of bringing the 2014 Tour de France to print, please visit https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1335072134/book-de-tour.  There are some very nice rewards for those who choose to back this project, they all include your name in print on the Special Thanks page of the book, and various levels include an artist signed copy of the book, original art and/or printed postcards.  The book is available for any pledge of support at $25 USD and above.  If you would rather just purchase this particular painting follow the direct link at the end of this post, but wouldn't you want to have all of the paintings in a book, too?

http://www.greigleach.com/large-view/Tour%20de%20France%202014/2405562---199992/Painting.html#.U8x998vD_IU