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Sorry if it’s already been posted. ToB route looks interesting, especially as I live 5 minutes from Whinlatter pass, as it goes up there 3 times!
First time is a short uphill team time trial from Cockermouth, then the following day’s stage is Barrow to Whinlatter summit finish, having already gone over the pass en route out to West Cumbria.
Haven’t looked at the rest of it yet........
http://www.tourofbritain.co.uk
The signs have been up in Barnstaple for weeks .......but the route only officially announced today / yesterday.
Barrow-in-Furness!! Who thought that one up? all the bikes'll get nicked.
Looks to be some mighty transfers each day too. That can't be nice.
Tour of 2/3 of Britain more like
It is passing within a mile of my house... think I will be taking the day off... and maybe sitting outside the pub at Lowick with a pint 🙂
Might have a few days off with the camera!!
Ooh, trip to the Lakes I think. Funnily enough I was musing the other day on how a mountain TTT would pan out.
What no Norfolk stage!! Wanted to see the king of the mountains points for here........
Maybe should be re-named the 'Tour of the lower half of Britain'.
Or 'Tour of England, with a compensatory day in South Wales'.
Are the organisers not aware of the fantastic days that could be staged in that other country, Scotland? You know, the one with all (sorry, most of) the pointy, hilly bits in it?
Imagine a stage starting in Perth and heading to Aviemore via the A93 and the three ski roads... About 110 miles and a stack of climbs, including 8 sustained pitches over 10%, three at 20% and peaking at 25% approaching the Lecht. Proper mountain views, castles, rivers & lochs; visually stunning for cameras and spectators alike and no problems with resources and facilities either.
To win this stage, you'd need to be both a good climber and a quality descender, plus it could finish in the ski area car park at Cairngorm!! Awesome stage and perhaps the best in the UK..?
Mind you, Inverness, Lochcarron, Applecross, Gairloch, Braemore and back to say, Dingwall would be quite a showcase for mountain scenery and would hurt the legs too...
After all these years, why is the event so insular?
Probably because that's what sells - crowds at the road help as do towns willing to pay to host it.
Also the stage you suggested would be regarded as a pantomime by the teams and they then wouldn't send their best riders.
Same as the Tour, Giro, Vuelta, etc.
FWIW, it goes right near my house 🙂
Maybe should be re-named the ‘Tour of the lower half of Britain’.Or ‘Tour of England, with a compensatory day in South Wales’.
Or "The Tour of Britain that largely misses out the bits it visited last year in the interests of spreading things round a bit".
Not as catchy maybe?
Maybe your stage would be amazing. Maybe it would be completely totally impractical because of transfers before / afterwards, getting all the infrastructure in and out, having some crowds on the roadside and not fitting into the "event story" that they generate.
The event is widely regarded as a warm up for the World Championships a couple of weeks later so it often tries to mirror some aspects of that but it is so massively tied into councils, police forces and UCI transfer regulations that it cannot possibly visit everywhere or do every iconic hill in the UK.
Every single year a bunch of people who'd probably struggle to organise their own cutlery drawer pop up on the ToB Facebook page to slag them all off for organising an event that has dared not to ride past their own front door...
It’s always been the same hasn’t it? I remember back in the Kellogg Tour days and it was “Tour of not much more than a couple of southern Counties” even back then.
Its just a low rated UCI calendar race as C-L says, more of a local warm up for the Worlds... not too dissimilar to other countries holding thier own Tours for the same reason...
After all these years, why is the event so insular?
Yeah cause they let the rest of the UK hold the world cup every so often rather than keep going back to Ft William.
There are other challenbges as well - it won't go to Yorkshire as they've got the Tour de Yorkshire.
It won't do North East this year as that's already hosting the National Road Race Championships. North Wales has a stage of the Women's Tour so unlikely that they'd then take the Men's Tour there too.
If you've got stages that are down in the South it's unlikely that they'd be able to get to Scotland just based on transfer times. Vice versa - last year it started in Edinburgh but never made it as far as the South West simply becasue it doesn't have time to get that far.
The website is horrific.. not one map of the whole thing.
The tour of Britain seems like a glorified stage race series, compared the the tour de france /giro/veuluta where I presume they start in the town where they finish?
Regions pay to host a stage, usually as part of a tourism marketing initiative (either immediate "attendance" as the metric or longer tail "awareness" dependent on their objectives), so if a region hasn't got a stage, regardless how good the riding might be around their, it's because they either don't have the budget or it doesn't meet their marketing objectives. Simple commercial decision.
Towns pay to host a stage. A Cairngorm stage might be wonderful but if Barrow-in-Furness are offering more cash, that's where the race is going.
How tf did Barrow-in-Furness pay for it? Unless excrement is now a currency.
Probably via Cumbria CC and BAE? Gets the south end of the county on the map and on TV, all the places down there that people overlook on the way North.
I’m guessing that the first 10km out of Barrow will be the fastest in bike racing history.
Not much love for Barra on here is there? Victorian industrial town, wide avenues, coastal road to Ulverston is beautiful (assume they're routing it that way) ... Tour series goes there doesn't it?
Wouldn't want to live there, but it'll look good on telly.
Any idea what the deal is with road closures and getting along the route before the race arrives on a bike?
Any idea what the deal is with road closures and getting along the route before the race arrives on a bike?
Usually fine, bikes and walkers are given free rein until the first police bikes come through which is usually about 20 minutes ahead of the actual race. If you're in a vehicle, you WILL be stopped and held at that point.
awesome, some plans coming on here