The Alex Dowsett Incident

"What?" I hear you say, "Who's Alex Dowsett?"

Kara knows, don't you, Kara?

Alex Dowsett is a Sky rider:he joined Sky this season, having previously been in the Trek-Livestrong Under 23 squad.

He's pretty damned good at TT, and as you can see, has a nice smile, pleasantly tousled hair - probably has tuftage potential - and, what you can't see, he has a very laid-back, flat, deadpan, Essex accent.

He was recently a studio guest at the Vuelta coverage, on the day when his team-mates Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome - or "Friggins" as they are now known - were battling up that horrendously steep hill on Stage 17, ending in Chris Froome beating Cobo by just one second.

I was shouting "Go! Go!" at the computer, the commentators were screaming deliriously,  there was madness and pandemonium all around, then Ned Boulting turned to Alex, in the studio, and said something like "Wow! Fantastic! That's amazing!" to which Alex replied, deadpan, "Yeah. He done reely well."

A master of the understatement, our Alex.

So, this Incident? Tour of Britain, Sunday, London: in the morning he did a storming TT and won it ("Yay!") and in the afternoon he was participating in the "road race" or Criterium, as it was really, being 8 loops of a circuit up and down the Embankment.

During one of the laps, a bright green Sky bidon came flying out of the peloton as it crossed opposite us.

Now, going back to the tour of Colorado, they had some fairly amusing on-screen graphics, like pointers labelling the riders, which moved with them. I suspect we are going to see a lot more of those.. but the point is, LLB and I thought it would be fun if they also added a graphic (this is under the heading of How To Make Road Racing More Interesting To Watch, by the way) of a cartoon explosion, to go wherever a flung bidon lands. So, now, we always make a sound effect when a bidon is thrown - I can't find a way to write it down, but it's like an airy whistle, descending in tone - the sound of a missile coming down to earth, with "Pwhhh!" at the end for when it hits the ground.

Ah, little things make us laugh.

Anyway, we saw this bidon go flying into the crowd on the other side of the road, and we both made the missile noise, but to our amazement it hit an elderly gent right on the forehead, Splat! Water everywhere, the bidon bounced back into the road, the elderly gent staggered backwards with one hand held to his head, people nearby turned to him in consternation, and one of the team cars ran over the bidon which exploded with a mighty POP! leaving bits of plastic shrapnel all over the road.

The elderly gent wasn't hurt, he was more shocked and surprised, and he quickly recovered himself and continued to watch the race. Although he moved back next time they came through...

Later that evening, Alex Dowsett - obviously wracked with guilt tweeted:


So I responded:












And he answered me!














Alex, you have made yourself a fan!