IT will be a day when even les rosbifs give up their Sunday lunch. Up to 2m Britons are expected to line the route of the Tour de France today to witness the biggest French invasion since the battle of Hastings.
Tens of thousands will picnic on baguettes and beaujolais as the cyclists flash by in a colourful blur of speed en route from Greenwich to Canterbury.
It took Chaucer's pilgrims at least three days to reach Canterbury by a shorter route, but the fastest of today's cyclists will whiz through in less than five hours. They will be led off by the rider who won the coveted yellow jersey in the race's prologue, a five-mile time trial in the shadows of Big Ben.
Giant cheeses and human carrots will form part of a publicity caravan that heralds the imminent arrival of the riders.
An estimated half a million people turned out yesterday to watch the 189 riders take part in the sprint around central London that started just around the corner from where terrorists had tried to explode car bombs just over a week ago.
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Britain's contenders included Bradley Wiggins, 27, who won three medals, including a gold, at the 2004 Athens Olympics, and David Millar, a 30-year-old Scot who was banned from the sport for two years in 2004 after admitting taking an illegal blood-boosting hormone.
"This is about as big as it gets," said Wiggins. "I can see the stir that it has created and if we can inspire a couple of people to get cycling that's good."
London has paid £1.5m to stage the opening stage of the Tour de France and spent another £4m on planning, transport and security.
More than 6,000 British police will be on duty today along with 45 officers from the Garde Républicaine, the unit of the French gendarmerie that handles ceremonial duties. Council planners in Kent have spent two years preparing for the event.
Barry Cann, 60, a quantity surveyor who is planning a barbecue in his garden overlooking an intermediary sprint finish line along the route at Wateringbury near Maidstone, said: "It is going to be great fun. We have ordered some decent French wine and one of our neighbours is making a meringue in the colours of the tricolour."
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The route through some of the most beautiful scenery of southern England will be a gentle entrée for the further stages of the Tour de France, which stret-ches more than 2,200 miles and is among the world's most punishing sporting challenges.
The race will test its competitors to the limits of their endurance before it ends on the Champs-Elysées in Paris on July 29.
This will be the first time the tour has started in England, but the third time it has passed through. In 1974 to celebrate the UK's entry into the Common Market - and the arrival of artichokes aboard a ferry service from Brittany to Plymouth - 80,000 people watched a stage on a dual carriageway in Devon. Stages of the race were also held in southern England in 1994.
Yesterday, fans of one of Britain's forgotten sports poured into the capital for the time trial.
Steve Barby, 45, a computer programmer from Horsham in West Sussex, who had bought his children, Matt, 12, and Sam, 9, said: "It's great to see the world's top riders at first hand."
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Today's spectators may not be so lucky. In a case of disjointed thinking, South Eastern Trains has banned spectators from taking cycles on trains, which means they will have to walk up to three miles to see the race.