The FOA Tour de Film night on Thursday July 18th was a huge success, with nearly 100 people comfortably wedged into the Electron Workshop.

With people trickling in from just before 7pm it was with great delight that the Beatbox Kitchen rolled up and set about getting the hotplates fired up and the deep fryer pumping out the chips. By 8pm everyone was ready for the film to start and nearly all of the deckchairs were occupied. Screening an old classic meant that many people were half watching/half chatting and the atmosphere was a great mixture of content movie-goers and those there to catch up with mates and watch the bits they know and love.

Whilst this was all going on, resident LEGEND, Blakey was flying around in a borrowed car looking for an antenna booster to try and find our once perfect SBS signal. Tested at 6.30pm there were ZERO issues. 7pm, no signal. We decided it was due to the storm that had rolled through earlier that day, but whatever the reason, without SBS we would’ve been in a spot of bother. I did my best to keep calm and pretend it wasn’t happening, and in the end it was sorted and we were good to go!

From about 9pm, people started rolling in and soon the workshop was pretty full and buzzing with people. Once the film had finished we got stuck into the quiz and raffle and dealt out all of the sweet prizes on offer from all of our wonderful sponsors. Due to the late start of the film, the quiz went over into the start of the TdF and Brendan and HMC did well to placate a increasingly restless crowd, keen to watch the live coverage.

And so it progressed to just that, live HD coverage of Stage 18 of the 2013 Tour de France on a MASSIVE 5m x 3m screen courtesy of Valhalla Social Cinema. TWICE up the Alpe d’Huez. I won’t bother doing a race report, there’s plenty of sites that have that covered, but it was definitely a banger of a stage. Plenty of cheers for mishaps and attacks alike, the crowd increasingly vocal as the night rolled on. Coffee kept many people going (myself included) and there was no shortage of it thanks to the Coffee Peddlr’s bright orange Citroen van parked in the space and FOA’s very own Benny Tatts.

Great night, great people and definitely a highlight of this years Tour de France.

– Rolly Cox