Roadside Stage 15: The final week of the Tour de France is always the best and this year we have the Alps to make that last shake of the dice that bit more exciting. Our most experienced Grand Tour follower, Ed Hood, has taken over the Tour reins for the third week. Here is his Grand Entrance.Dawn breaks and the North Sea broods; it’s cooking up how it’s going to wreck another day at the British Open Golf Championship, just up the coast in Saint Andrews – rain maybe? Flood the bunkers? Or wind? Blow the balls off the greens?The North Sea may not be an Ocean but what it lacks in size it makes up for in unpredictability and ferocity – it even had its say with Le Tour.Just ask Nibali . . .But there’s a ray of sunshine waiting for me at the news agents – big Stevie Cummings victory salute dominates the front page of The Observer.One of the ‘good guys’ – back in Steve’s Disco days when he rode in the service of Contador, the Spaniard said; ‘I’d have Cummings in my team any day.’ Cummings is an under-rated rider; a former world team pursuit champion and Olympic team pursuit medallist, he ‘paid his dues’ with Landboukrediet and Barloworld before moving up the divisions to Discovery, Sky and BMC. He doesn’t win often, but when he does it’s always memorable – his beautiful Vuelta stage win in 2012 a case in point.Yesterday was true to the...
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