Prologue: London

Felicitations Fabian Cancellara!!!

The Swiss rider for team CSC and the current world champion time triallist won today's individual 7.9km time trial with a time of 8:50. In second was Germany's Andreas Kloden, one of our yellow jersey contenders, with a time of 9:03, and in third place was American George Hincapie, of Discovery Channel, with a time of 9:13. If you want to have a look at the central London route during peak hour traffic, check out the BBC's video here. The cyclists definitely completed the route a bit faster than most cars - the average time is just over a minute a kilometre!

Our sympathies to Australian rider Stuart O'Grady, also of CSC, who had the Tour's first crash on one of the corners of the course. He's fine, but it's hard to make up that time that you lose falling down, getting back up, and switching to a new bike. It is still only the prologue, however, and a lot can happen! I (Debby) am going to count on that, for another time trial where David Zabriskie can show us what he's really made of. His 11th place today was a little disappointing, though I know a lot of riders are holding back right now, since they have 20 more days of riding. It's all about pace!

Speaking of pace, how are our knitters doing? We now have closed sign-ups and are happy to report we have 114 crafters working on nearly as many projects. Lots of you are probably wondering how this knit along is actually going to work. The co-hosts will post every day with highlights of the Tour as well as highlights of progress from each of the jersey groups. We'll be reviewing each of your blogs every day and will let everyone on the KAL blog know of your progress and triumphs (and, as Stuart O'Grady can attest, the thrills and spills as well). Debby will be looking after the Yellow and White jerseys, while Meg will be trying to keep up with the Green and Polka Dot jerseys.

People without blogs can let us know how they're going by dropping one of us an email, depending on which group you're in - include a photo if you can!

While you're working away on your project, please take the time to visit the blogs of the other people in your group, or of all the other participants in the Tour - we all know how encouraging a friendly comment can be when we're slogging through a big project!

Here's the final run-down on the latest participants to join the Tour:

In the green category, we have two Mermaid knitters joining us: Arja and Ann. The sock knitters could probably take over the world! In the sprinting sock category we have Meredith, Leslie, Isela, and Jen. Susan asks that we please help keep her Clapotis from hanging out with the 'wrong types' at the bottom of the UFO basket. A few hearty souls (including co-host Meg) are tackling jumpers in 22 days: Zarah, Erin, Westozcaat, and Ingrid. Amelia really needs to finish lace stole 'Myrtille' by the end of the Tour - it's for the bride to wear in a wedding five days later! Kate is working on 'Pierre' and 'Sandrine' - a vest for her son and a jumper for her daughter (projects named in honour of the Tour), while no-blog Norma is making a baby angel top from a 70s French magazine called 'Mon Tricot' - vraiment Francais! Emily is catching up on a gift that was promised two years ago (a crochet afghan) and Joy is making a shawl.

The Mystery Stole 3 is proving to be a bit of a mountainous challenge for several of our polkadot jersey knitters: Westozcaat (yes she's sprinting too - what a legend), Auntly H, Stacey, and Knit Lit. Laceknitters working on projects other than MS3 as their challenge include Morgan, no-blog Trude, Madeleine, Samantha, Amber, Maylin, and Christina. Andi, no-blog Maxine, no-blog Heidi and Moze are all planning to work on long-standing WIPs. Whitney, no-blog Lisa, Puk, Lene, Cecile, Kathy, and no-blog Jane are all working on sweaters, while socks are the mission for Lauren, Jane, and Angie. Steph is working on some fair isle mittens, Mary Heather is trying cables for the first time, Pamela is working on the counterpane carpet bag from Hand Knit Holidays, and Natalie has gotten into the l'esprit de Tour things and named the yarns in her on-line shop in French in honour of the tour. Jennifer in Tucson has decided to wear the white jersey while working on her first ever knitted garment - bonne chance Jennifer!

The all-rounders in the general classification (yellow jersey) are working on so many different projects! But socks are well represented here too, by Kristin, Teabird, Kat, Elaine, T. (who will be working on socks during the mountain stages and Mystery Stole 3 during the flat stages), Martha, Jennifer, and Heather T. Phoebe is also working on the Mystery Stole 3. Mary Beth and Meg are both working on Clapotis. No-bloggers Judy and Megan, as well as Greeley, are working on lovely jumpers. The babies will be the real winners with all the cute baby knits people are working on, including KnotAnotherKnitter, no-blog Emily and no-blog Tamsyn, and Romelda. Sprite is making some tres-chic market bags, while Barbara is taking on the mountain of WIPs. No-blog Janet is going to try to make one inch of progress on her circular blanket for each stage of the Tour - her goal will get more difficult as the Tour goes on! - and even my Papa couldn't resist the crafting fun - he'll be pulling out the plastic canvas cross stitch and making eyeglass cases! Finnish knitter Stitchy Fingers is working on 'Gloves Noir' and pointed out that, in Finnish, the word peloton means 'fearless' or 'undaunted' - so I will leave you with that thought...Be fearless and undaunted as we set out on our 3,500km bicycle ride/knit!

Not only have some big cycling fans joined us (we welcome you to improve on our cycling commentary in the comments!), we have had some real French speakers join us! I think they have all been forewarned that the Francais around here is unapologetically high-school-level or lower (thank you google translator) - so maybe they can supplement our vocabulaire Francaise! There are also a few people who are in London now, or who are going to be in Paris at the end, so we're looking forward to some eyewitness accounts in the near future!

P.S. If anyone has been incorrectly listed as a no-blogger, we apologise. Please drop one of us a line and we will remedy the link in the sidebar.