Tour of Beijing

You'd have thought the Chinese authorities wouldn't have been so anal from day 1, which kept away the crowds.
Every day, guards or police seemed to be posted at attention, every 100 mtr or so, obviously they didn't want scenes with crowds as LeTour or Vuelta coming close to riders.
The routes were well choreographed with the helicopter shots, apart from the Airwolf incident on the mountain stage which KO'd Eijssen.
Weather conditions were not brilliant in Beijing itself with the smog, so surprised that Stage 5 had so many laps [12] around the Water Cube route [boring] rather than take the riders away from the city into cleaner air.
As a first tour it seemed to go well & a good platform for the future

Bit disappointed with this race, should a race with 5 stages be primarily decided based on a TT in the first stage? as much as froome tried on stage 3 i think it was, the rest were just sprint stages equaling no change in the GC

If `There are nine million bicycles in Beijing' can't see them in TT on my tele.
Crappy air quality & no spectators

Brilliant riding by Millar, Dowsett, Frooome & Cummings

Have you checked the website
http://www.tourofbeijing.net/