#BeautifulSunday: Tour de France 2017 rides through my neighbourhood district in Düsseldorf

The rainclouds threatened to dampen the beauty of my Sunday, but there were other forces at work!

I mean, you have to admit that it's not every day that Tour de France decides to ride through your little neighbourhood district, right? :)

You read right. . . Düsseldorf is the host city of Tour de France 2017. Even with all the traffic jams and road closures caused by the race's kickoff, the spirits in the city were high and buzzing.

After I made my yummy Avocado Juice for breakfast, we rushed to the corner of Benderstrasse to see the action. On schedule, the road-cyclists were supposed to round the bend around 12.30. We were a couple minutes late because my bro-in-law had hurt his foot and couldn't brisk-walk as quickly as the rest of us, but our 100m sprint on the last stretch made up for it ;)

When we arrived, there was already a sizeable crowd gathered and cheering. Moments later, two police motorbikes came riding round the corner, leading a parade of cars with road bikes perched on top of them.

Then about 5 minutes later, the first cyclists came announced by loud cheers, whistles, and little outbursts of confetti ;)

You could hear the hum of their bikes as their powerful legs spun the wheels! They were so fast, my pulse was racing and goosebumps formed on my skin. It was exhilarating and super thrilling to be standing a meter away from the racers as they sped by!

After the initial bike packs, team sponsor cars and more bikes started to go by, intermingled.

Watch how the cyclists lean their bikes over to make the rather abrupt turn.

This guy decided to overtake the car before the turn!

Finally, this cute little car came careening around the bend, tooting its horn and signalling the end of events for our road section.

Everything was over in 15 minutes. As we strolled home together, it started drizzling, and darker grey clouds gathered. But that could not dampen our spirits, as we made our way home with other neighbours, commenting on the sights we had just shared.

Here's one last memory of this uplifting experience. I really wish you Steemians could have been there too:

The #BeautifulSunday contest is run by my fellow Singaporean steemian @ace108.

He's a really cool dude, and he's even funding the contest from his own pocket. So join the contest, or send his initiative a donation. Either way, it will go a long way into injecting more colour into this community each Sunday at the very least :))

Thanks for reading my post! I hope to read about your beautiful Sunday too. If you'd like to see more of my writing, follow @foodie.warrior. There's lots more where that came from :)

Your support is a great encouragement to me. Here's a big THANK YOU from me! <3