Cycling race Harrogate N Yorks 2019. If you live in Harrogate...

[Dowser]

How has the race affected you especially where it passes through residential areas
Has it affected normal life.
We were going to go to Thorpe perrow arboretum yesterday but heard the route went near Masham so decided to give it a miss but I feel for you Harrogatians
I can only imagine it being horrendous..especially today as they going round and round the same circuit with the awful weather

We were in Harrogate a few months ago when it was the tour de Yorkshire but I imagine this is much bigger.

In my opinion it’s been a huge inconvenience. The town has been on lockdown, town centre shops have been deserted for over a week and must have lost thousands of pounds of income. There are many roadblocks which will take a few more days to remove so it’s not over yet. I’m sure cycling fans have loved it, there was a great atmosphere this weekend. But overall it was all a bit too long and parts of the town will take months to recover from the damage done by the fan zone.

I saw a news segment the other night where some of the businesses felt that they had been missold into supporting the whole thing.

The Tour de France was based here for a weekend a few years ago and many residents and traders were unhappy after that. The council promised that town centre businesses would not suffer again. I know some small business owners who closed for the entire week and others which remained open but have had virtually no customers. Visitors have been encouraged into a fan zone which has been so strictly marshalled that they could be forgiven for thinking we have no town centre bars, restaurants and shops. Unfortunately that fan zone was on an area of grassland which has had to be closed off as it been so wet and will take months to recover.

The local paper last week had a lot of negative articles and letters in it, I’m expecting more next week. It has been an amazing event but perhaps a bit much for a small town.

Kind of what I thought
And I totally agree with you
We come over quite often from easingwold but have just given it a wide berth

When we watched it on tv I could see all those residences practically on lockdown and today they circled the town 9 times instead of 7 on account of the atrocious weather
Ridiculous
My dh called me a philistine

Oh and I know what you mean about local businesses
We held the tall ships a few years ago
And the town lost 3/4 of a million
How the fuck did that happen
Still gives me the rage now 😡

Local businesses were promised two million visitors. I don’t know what the numbers actually were but I do know they were not on the high street in the shops during the day. Even when there was no cycling happening, which was most of the time to be honest, the shops were empty, it’s been very strange. I know one family business lost £60000 last week. We have eaten out twice and both restaurants had plenty of spare tables, even one which usually requires about a months notice for a table.

It’s a beautiful morning after yesterday’s rain, I’m heading into town and I’ll be interested to see if it’s busy. The anti tank barriers will still be in place so many roads will still be closed though.

Don't know why you thought Thorp Perrow would have been inaccessible this weekend past (though it was so wet on Sunday it wouldn't have been on my list of things to do). The road closures have been pretty easy to check via the cycling champs website.

We aren't in Harrogate but have been on a couple of the routes and the level of panic and faff has been astounding from some of the residents. Even where roads have been closed there's been parking made available that you could move your car to but then (shock! Horror!) you would have to walk home from where you had parked. Some of the road closures have started surprisingly early though - certainly far earlier than they did for the Tour de Yorkshire.

And no I'm not a cyclist

From where we are we would go near masham which I think was on the route

£60,000 is a lot to lose

5 seconds on Google would have told you what the road closures were.

If everyone is assuming everything is closed because there's an event on then maybe some of the businesses affected should shout more about being open as usual (like Thorp Perrow did for the day they were affected - including providing a map with an alternate route in!). Or maybe everyone could check if roads really are closed in a 5 mile radius of the race route