With the Tour de France visiting England I had to travel north to Yorkshire. For Stage One I cycled 30 miles from my B&B to Buttertubs Pass. Part way up this is the steepest part of the climb at 17% which also has hillsides either side making for good viewpoints.
The estimate was that 10,000 people mostly arriving by bicycle lined the 3 mile climb. The atmosphere was like a big alpine climb and when the race arrived it was confined by the crowds to a narrow corridor.
For this shot I decided to go with selective colour to make the riders stand out. I used the pen tool to make a precise selection. Further editing was done with Topaz adjust and Topaz denoise.
The camera used was a Sony A700 with a Tamron 28-200mm zoom lens lens at 200mm taken handheld. I used ISO 500 and f6.7 to get a high enough shutter speed for the zoom setting and the riders speed