So, we headed up to Yorkshire to watch some of this years Tour de Yorkshire. When we left here a loose plan was in my mind where we could watch the women and mens races on Friday, and the men on Saturday. We left Thursday morning and had made a plan to stop at Derby to meet up with @Keiran1786 for a drink and to break the journey. We arranged to meet at a pub on Ashbourne Road and was glad of catching up with a fellow #FantasyFives player. From there it was back on the road to Harrogate to stay with my cousin for a few days.
When we arrived, had a meal and started to really form a plan for watching stage 2, originally we thought of going to the finish at the Cow and Calf, the first mountain top finish in the 4 years of the Tour de Yorkshire. Then thought there would be masses of people there and limited possibilities of watching the racing up close, so he set off to Otley to watch the womens race go through and then head to Ilkley for the mens race, but the town and not the finish. This was because the team support would be based at the leisure centre and so all the riders would come back down the hill. There was limited parking at the top and with the organisation vehicles, TV trucks it wouldn’t be possible for all to be there.
We positioned ourselves on the course in Otley to watch the race come though, towards the end of the town, before a couple of bends, right and left, both were sweeping bends so wouldn’t result in any real slow down, but a nice position. We waited for the race to arrive, with the caravan and then the riders coming through.
The race had split into several groups by time they arrived at Otley, here are a couple of video clips of the race:
After the race had gone through, we had some time to spare so drove to Bolton Abbey, intending on having a walk around and a coffee before heading to Ilkley for the mens race. In order to park there, they wanted £10 so we decided against that as only planning on a quick stop anyway. We headed to Addingham and stopped there for a drink.
As we drove back to Ilkley, found on our right the cycle shop Wheelbase, so got parked near to the leisure centre for the race and walked back. They had the race showing on big screens and lots of activity around the shop and car-park, nothing took our fancy so we walked back to the town and found The Commute Yorkshire coffee shop, so decided to stop here for a coffee before walking back over the bridge to watch the arrival of the mens race.
We arrived at the bridge in time for the caravan to go past, and then moved to the corner of Denton Road to watch as the race took the corner.
After the race had gone through and riders started coming down the hill to return to the leisure centre, there were still riders how hadn’t hey tackled the climb and only now passing through to tackle the hill.
We walked to the centre and onto the car park, just as Emils Leipins was entering the park! I said, quick, before he disappears! We headed past some of the other teams and found One Pro. Emils was training down on a static bike so went up, introduced myself and had a quick chat with him. The whole day had been full-on from the off and a hard day all round. We left him to his spin down after saying that hoped to get to the start at Richmond the following day.
We headed back to the car and made our way back to Harrogate.
Saturday dawned, and we got up and prepared some sandwiches, cheers Claire! And got some chairs down from the attic before heading up to Richmond for the start of stage 3. I expected it to be quite busy, why wouldn’t it be? The 2 previous days had been, but when we got there, it was packed! There were people everywhere. We got parked and headed towards where the team buses were, on the plan that could wish Emils luck for the day.
One Pro had already headed down to the sign on, so we started walking in the direction of the square. We got to the road leading to the square, and marshals had set up a one way system for spectators, down one side of street and up the other. Just as we got to the beginning of this, Emils was cycling back up from sign on, so called out and wished him luck, as well as apologising for not bringing a potato. We slowly moved down towards the square, and then headed past the start line to the park at bottom of the road, where the riders would head out for the days stage. We stayed here and caught the departure. This would be the last we saw of the actual race live.
The Tour de Yorkshire have an official artist, Lucy Pittaway (https://www.lucypittaway.co.uk/) who has a shop in Richmond, while we were there, it seemed rude not to pop in. Clearly, going in meant coming out with a print!
We left Richmond and headed into the Dales, to complete a loop round to Harrogate in the evening. Heading to Grinton, Leyburn, Middleham and Masham. Here the town square was cordoned off for a festival around the Tour de Yorkshire. From here we crossed along some quaint lanes to Ramsgill and stopped by a small river for some food. From here it was back to Harrogate and a BBQ tea
Sunday was to be our day for heading back to Bristol. We planned a leisurely drive down, using motorways and making some detours through the Peak District and Heart of England. Sitting on a motorway for 4 or 5 hours is both monotonous and soul destroying. When got home on Sunday evening, saw a competition from One Pro Cycling to guess the mileage that had been completed by the teams DB11 during the 4 stages. The total was 768 miles and I put 742 and WON!! Now looking forward to a tour of the Aston Martin factory as my prize! (That will be another post, in due course)
All in all, a great weekend at an awesome race, over the 4 days 2.6 million people watched from the roadside, that’s 1187 for every mile of the race. How crazy is that!
White Bridge 