Tour de Yorkshire, Cambridge...and oh yes France as well!!

[Panwearsjaune]

T minus 35 days and counting, to the Grand Depart from Leeds 5th July, with two stages in the White County, and then a third from Cambridge to the Mall in London. It's just soo exciting! It's the biggest biking event in the world, with approx 190 professional riders in about 20 teams racing across tarmac and cobbles, up mountains and down Dales and ending on 27th July on the Champs Elysee, Paris in the now traditional sprint finish there. So here's the thread to share in it all, swop info about accommodation for Tour watchers, road closures, the parcours (courses), peloton gossip, potential meet ups, tv coverage, who's got the nicest legs etc.. and everything to do with the thrills and occasional spills with the event that is a game of poker played out every day on 380 wheels. OF course if you are a newbie to all of this and are curious about the whys and hows of racing then ask and someone will pop up to answer questions. Hopefully.

So I'll depart here next with the routes of the UK 3 stages being taken so no-one gets lost and ends up in the dreaded broom wagon.

Love opqs and orica's social media stuff...their videos are v good. And love the on bike camera videos

On an operational point, does anyone have a view on getting rid of race radios? The UCI I think are making moves to ban them gradually. The argument is that it would make the race an actual race rather than having the peloton sit back and not race until they think they will be able to catch the escapados. I'd go with that. Anyone else?

It would change the race quite a bit wouldn't it...no idea of timings would make the GC v twitchy and you can see breakaways getting v long time gaps. Would be interesting but I don't mind having radios. It's still tactical.

No one is going to beat Kittel, are they. Loved Renshaw having a dig though.

I agree. Did they not recently (within the past few years) have a couple of stages where they couldn't use the radios? And they were more exciting?

yes last years Tour of Britain didn't have radios and it was a good deal more mixed and less of a procession for miles.

Typical from the BBC - they are so hopelessly out of their depth with anything much more than about 20 miles out of London.

Love those videos - I bet they have some fun en route.

Just catching up now. Think I've got a bit of a thing for Kittel

Yes I decided I didn't mind if he won again after he flexed his biceps on the finishing line today [shallow] [30 yrs of watching TdF and I'm reduced to this]

I think they only have radios at World Tour level because the smaller teams can't necessarily afford it. It would add some spice to the grand tours if they went, but would the teams let them go now?

Kittel seems like a nice young man. I don't mind him winning, in the absence of Cav, it doesn't seem like anyone else is going to get past him.

If they didn't have radios would they go back to the motorbikes with time gaps written in chalk on blackboards?

So they'd still know how far away the break was, just wouldn't get that information instantly like they do now. Would there be more going back to team cars for tactics?

I seem to remember a radio-less stage recently too in the tour, or was I imagining that? Would be interesting to see anyway.

Endo - I'm sure that both you and I are not both imagining it. I'll have to ask my Tour Geek 13 year old.

Longer ago than I thought: TdF 2009.

Tour geek ds is adamantly against it on safety grounds. He can't imagine how it would operate without radio contact with riders.

Wow, Kittel is something else, isn't he? I can't see anyone else challenging him. I call him Usain Bolt on a bike.

Some great hauls of Tour goodies there, ladies. All I managed to get from the Giro was a few pink Tic-Tacs

I've not really given any thought to the use of race radios, but perhaps it makes things more interesting to have radios in some races and not in others.

prettybird they used to manage without, didn't they. It's a bit like today's teenagers being unable to fathom how anyone ever managed a social life without a mobile phone.

I watched from the end of my street in Leeds . It was bloody fantastic; Leeds did a fab job and the set up and clean up was sooo smooth, with disruption kept to a minimum. I'm a care worker and my company managed to get to everyone on time as usual. Yorkshire looked wonderful in the sunshine, the fans were brilliantly well behaved (apart from one or two on the hills who were twats) and the gendarmerie looked much hotter than our policemen and were very friendly. We had several pull up next to our spot and they all said hello and waved. And DS1 managed to get a coveted spotty hat! And we did our bit to help the cleanup campaign and got a couple of souvenirs into the bargain

What a brilliant day; we're still buzzing

Coming through Walthamstow this afternoon ...

Plastic Ibis pillow kept DD and DNiece2 amused for a good 90 minutes inflating and deflating it, so I am quite pro-ibis as a result .

Andy Schleck out. What a surprise. Can't see his career continuing, can you?

Yesterday, DH cycled part of the route early in the morning, & met DTDs & I for a picnic at Finchingfield, which was heaving with people! Was a great atmosphere though

What is the deal with Andy Schleck? He's getting a lot of [eye roll] comments in twitter. I must have missed something

I am very late with my Race Day 2 Update but I hope you will forgive me for I Have News, People.

First off - DH took the DD's on their bikes (mardy little so-so DD2 consented to riding under her own steam for him, oh yes) from the Racecourse in York up to the Minster. He said that they were pretty much the last riders on the course leading out the caravan and the DD's got massive crowd applause. He said he was almost crying. The girls report that he did a lot of riding with his hands aloft as if winning a stage...

Meanwhile, I got up at 4:30am to report for Tour duty. It was fairly chaotic and disorganised and they finally loaded us all into a coach and we drove the route dropping off teams of volunteers on the way. Although it was only just past 7:00am there were already pockets of spectators setting up their areas and we were all very Jolly and Good Spirited and waving at each other. Inside the bus, tension mounted as we had been told that we were on a sector that had 14 volunteers deployed to it with 6 flag marshall points. We began to eye each other up in a Lord of The Flies type way.

We got thrown off the bus past Knaresborough into a small village called Starbeck. It had a long, straight, shallow descent into the village with a series of three traffic islands upon which were to stand three Flag MArshalls. And I scored the middle one! I got my Hi-vis and a whistle and a flag and a page of A4 to tell me which way to point he flag and when to do it all.

As the caravan came past, I just stood on the island as a human belisha beacon in hi-vis and over-large uniform as they were coming through at speed. A couple of gendarmes played chicken with me, accelerating straight at me only to duck off at the last minute whilst I cowered behind my bollard - to the delight of the crowd. At one point, both large FruitShoots passed by me simultaneously on either side and I was nearly blown off the island. Its no wonder the beautiful boys and girls are strapped in so heftily.

For the final hour or so, I had a lovely time chatting with people about the race, helping kids chalk messages on the road and generally helping the cheer and excitement mount. Then my sector leader came over on the motorbike for a final pep talk which basically consisted of telling me to blow the whistle like a demon as they won't see the flag - the whistle is the bit that gets their attention.

Then we could hear the helicopters approaching and the tension began to mount and that is when it kicked in that I was actually going to be standing in the middle of the the Tour de France...

...and I was responsible for making sure that no-one flipped off their bike. Yikes.

The commissaire car came through announcing a 7 man-breakaway and we waited.....

I could see the marshall ahead of me lift her flag and then the helmets appear over the crest of the hill and the break came down the hill and whipped past, me blowing the whistle like a loon. And then the wait for the peleton.... and I was trying to check my watch to time the break! About two minutes later, we could hear the cheers and the whole peleton appeared en masse over the horizon and did that lovely swooping split-and-rejoin manoeuvre and headed straight at me. I was vaguely aware of blocks of colours as the teams rode at me, the first three teams peeled way to my left and thereafter the riders broke both left and right. The peleton was long and strung out and going so fast so they passed for ages. What was wonderful was to watch how they communicated the hazard back to each other, each team had a different system of hand flicks or arm gestures that rippled back through the peleton as the lead rider picked up where I was standing. All the time I was going "Oh My God, Oh My God" inside my head and blowing that whistle like a mad woman.

By this stage my arms were burning, I was concentrating on keeping the flag movements neat and tidy and contained within the width of my shoulders so that I didn't hit anyone and I was getting a touch light-headed from the whistle-blowing. As the team cars came past, I almost lowered my arms but was so glad that I didn't when an errant Belkin rider suddenly dodged out from between the team cars. He was trying to catch up to the peleton and swung out really late in front of me. I pretty much scream-whistled at him and he dodged the island in the niftiest bit of bike-handling I have ever witnessed.

Finally the broom wagon swung by and I lowered my arms and dropped the whistle and the surrounding crowd gave me a round of applause. I nearly wept again. It was very emotional. And that was it. All over. Within 5 minutes, we were free to go and I went and met the family in Knaresborough for a late lunch and a debrief.

If you have the long ITV coverage on record, I am at about 1 hour 28 mins in - in an aerial shot. That and the whistle and flag are the only tangible reminders of it. But it was truly awesome.

Thank you for listening...

Wow, sounds amazing!!! Well done. What great memories.

FANTASTIC - and literally how good is that howgoodisthat

I've been lurking here, as nothing really extra to add. But you and others like you did it proud. Great stuff, really great stuff.

HowGood I know Starbeck! That's a great story, I can picture you nearly being mown down by Fruitshoots. They went at some pace, considering how un-aerodynamic they are (and that I don't think you can see out the front very easily!)

The peloton move at some speed, on Saturday we were very close to them, to see them split either side of you must have been quite something. I would have needed fresh trousers, I think.