In the face of foul and unseasonably cold weather Brighton succeeds in hosting the best UK WNBR '12
I got to Preston Park about mid day and had to search for a while before I located the semi-cordoned off area for the WNBR cyclists which was indeed very small and located in the middle, northern area of the park, with various football matches going on adjacent to this rather bazaar gathering and the players paying absolutely no attention to it at all, in that special way than only us "Brits" can seem to do, when something is "none of our business !!"
Once I reached this special area I quickly summed up the situation - the weather was cold with the sky grey and gloomy, clearly threatening to rain quite hard, and the few cyclists who were there and stripped off all seemed to be gay gentlemen; "typical Brighton", I thought, (being one of the major gay capitals in the world). I hung round for a while and noticed how completely "over Policed" this calm, trouble-free and unobtrusive event was. Including two fully equipped Traffic Officers on their BMW motorbikes, regular Police officers, Police Liaison Officers and Police Community Support Officers as well as an abundance of officers from the special Police mountain bike unit, I counted at least thirty Police in total, (one of them was absolutely stunning, by the way, and unfortunately not taking part in the ride !!!). While I looked round at the surprisingly very few spectators, most of whom were absolutely fascinated oriental tourists of both sexes taking many photos, I was summing up the cost to local tax payers of this ridiculous and completely unnecessary amount of Policing. Whilst so doing, and being quite disgruntled by the whole situation, I suddenly noticed things started to change amongst the participants who were parading around in front of me........suddenly one, two then three, four, five and more very attractive young ladies started to appear as though from no where, (and so did the photographers !!).
Once I realised it seemed to be a free-for-all regarding taking photographs and that one could wander unchallenged amongst the riders I got out my compact Canon SX210 IS camera and started snapping away at my heart's content, and in certain circumstances politely asking the rider if they would mind having their photo taken; one young lady replying "no, that's all right - that's what its all about...."
In the end the small battery in my camera ran out of charge just as I realised there were even more lovely young ladies in an area of the now quite swollen crowd that I had not yet ventured into. By this time it was coming up to 1.30 p.m. and the riders were preparing to set off on their journey, and as they did so I saw yet many, many more very pretty girls cycle past me who I had not seen amongst the gathering masses. I could not take any more photos because my camera battery really was completely flat and the type of camera I have does not lend itself to taking quick shots.
Anyway, here are some of my photos.......more to come if you are interested.........
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