On Monday it was really hard to get up in the morning, as I was still very tired after the events of the weekend. I took the day off from work, so this became my first holiday in 2010. My original plan was to go to Brussels for the start of the signing-in, and stay in the area of the team buses, to get pictures of the riders passing by towards the podium, but I had a small trouble with the trains. To be more specific, my train did not come at all, so I had to take another one a half hour later, which meant that I had lost a lot of precious time. So the official paper-work had already started when I arrived, but that was the time also, when I had one of the nicest (most cool) moment of my tour-experience. I was heading to the entrance of the restricted area, waving with my press-card, so the crowd of people standing at the fences just opened up for me, then the security guy checked my ID and wished a good day while he let me inside. So first I took a short walk around the teams’ buses and cars, to take some pictures about the bikes (see the back-up bike of Lance Armstrong and Jurgen Van den Broeck).

The integrated (into the chainstay) speed and cadence sensor is very cool on the Trek bikes. Later on I took a spot along the way which the riders were using to get to the podium (and back), so I could take pictures of several cyclists passing by. I have chosen Gregory Rast to show from this batch of images, because I like how it gives back the feeling of the moment – with team cars and riders moving slowly between the buses and people…

The weather was not at all good, so probably there were discussions going on about the expectations and forecasts for the afternoon – I guess these guys (someone from Radobank – leave a comment if you know who he is – and Maarten Wynants) were in the middle of one of these conversations.

I had only one important wish left to be fulfilled: taking a good close-up photo of Lance Armstrong; so I made sure, I would be in a good position when he comes. The moment was not really hard to be noticed, as the photographers started to move towards someone in the distance, and flashes created an artificial storm of lightning – slowly getting closer and closer… But Lance stayed calm, and smiled for everyone :)

I think no amateur photographer can hope to take much better pictures than these. At least I had no expectations to really get this close to perfection (from my not-so-professional point of view). To be honest, it is quite hard to find good portrait photographs of Lance online.

The 7-time Tour de France-winner even came back from the signing-in and spent some time in the team bus before he finally left to the start-area (passing by us again both times). This gave all the photographers at least three opportunities to take pictures of him. This is good PR ;)

I did not see the start this time, because I stayed in this area to watch all the riders and official cars leaving. I had a much better view than the crowd in front of the Royal Palace ;) Yeah, it was a tiny little bit more spacious inside…

I took some pictures of the team cars and even the drivers in some cases, so for example here is Giuseppe Martinelli, the director of Astana (the team of Alberto Contador).

After the start, I went to the city centre, to take pictures of the Manneken Pis – a statue of a small peeing boy (an icon of the capital of Belgium), dressed in the yellow jersey from the 3rd till the 5th of July. Then it started to rain…

As I was still very tired, and the weather forecasts predicted rain for the finish, I decided to go back home (to Leuven). I was really not in the right mood (or the word “shape” might fit the situation better) for spending more than four hours (back and forth) on the train to take pictures in rain again. I have had enough of that on the Prologue. But I was extremely happy about the pictures of Lance, and the whole experience I got in the previous days, so everything was fine. After a short nap on the afternoon I organized a small ride to watch the riders passing by on the next day (I will write about this in detail later), then I went to play beach-wolleyball for two hours before I hit the bed :) Some people say I am overdoing this…