Colors of the Tour de France, Stage 5

Congratulations to Mark Cavendish on an incredible sprint finish!

As much as I was rooting for Tyler Farrar on Stage 3, I was rooting for Cavendish today. Something just doesn't feel right these days when Cavendish isn't out there winning stages. Maybe it's because we feel his emotions so vividly. We know how terrible Cavendish feels when things go wrong, especially since he always says he owes his loyal teammates a win. Or maybe it's because watching Cavendish and HTC-Highroad win a sprint is such a thing of beauty. In Cavendish and HTC's hands, the tactics of cycling look so graceful and powerful on the road.

Today's victory might not have followed the usual HTC-Highroad playbook, but that just made it all the more thrilling.

And then there was the magnificent backdrop of Brittany, with its grey villages, rocky coastlines, and all those delightful fans. Watching today's stage, I wanted to hop on a plane, rent a bike, ride to a spot on the Tour route, and cheer alongside all those wonderful people who love cycling so much.

So I'll do the next best thing. To the cycling fans of beautiful Brittany, this Stage 5 watercolor is for you.

Colors of the Tour de France, Stage 4

What an amazing stage -- with Contador, Evans, Hushovd, and Gilbert all battling it out at the finish! The "Wall of Brittany" certainly lived up to its evocative name, here in its first Tour de France appearance as a stage finish (See interesting comment from Trevor of the Purple Traveller blog below, correcting an earlier version of this post where I wrote that it was the Wall's first-ever appearance in Le Tour. Thanks, Trevor!)

Like yesterday, the scenery was just incredible. Gone are the red roofs of the Vendee region. Here in Brittany, we're being treated to the beautiful greys of the shops, houses, and village cathedrals, and the deep greens of the forests. And so it's that dark, mysterious forest that is the subject of my TdF watercolor for today, as the peloton races through Brittany on its way to the Mur de Bretagne.