Tour of Britain 2024

Anyone heading down to Kelso for the start (+finish)?

A fine looking start list 🙂

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/tourofbritain

Blimey this year you could actually it is a tour of Britain (ish)

On 6th September I’ll be manning the Ilkeston CC stand as they come through our village.

I’ve been involved in part in organising the South Yorkshire stage. Should be a good day with a few punchy climbs too. It starts about 500m from my office so may well go to watch it set off.

We were going to go to somewhere in the Borders, still may do, but the current forecast is awful, 70% chance of rain all day. Lets hope it changes.

I’m driving one of the race officials so I get all 6 days. 🙂

I working corporate stuff all day in Kelso. If you are visiting Melrose is a good spot. x2 sprints through the town and a big screen to watch the race the rest of the time.

I may have a wander down and watch in Melrose.

Either that or ride up to Scotts View and see them there.

Is it on itv4 as usual? Will have to set the pvr

I am an idiot. I was expecting to go to Jedburgh for the race to pass in the torrential rain yesterday. Luckily,yesterday morning, before I set off, I looked online at the start list, and realised I’m a week early. So, hopefully I’ll be there in 6 days time, in far better weather than it was yesterday.

Is it on itv4 as usual? Will have to set the pvr

Yes. Ned Boulting has tweeted a couple of bits of info about it plus he’ll be doing the Never Strays Far podcast from the race as well.

I see there’s a sprint in Tickhill. Seems a shame they couldn’t do another 2 miles to Harworth to pay homage to Tom Simpson.

Ned Boulting has tweeted a couple of bits of info about it

Yes, Ned replied when i asked on twitter, live coverage every day plus highlights in the evening. I’d still rather have had them covering the Vuelta though 😉

Forecast looking better for next week.

Are there details of the  road closures ,I plan to park an ride from near Melrose.

? Tune in, race on!

ITV4 and ITVX to broadcast live coverage of every stage of the 2024 Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain Men!

Can't catch the action live? Worry not, there'll also be a one hour highlights show each evening. Find out more ⬇️#TourOfBritain | @ITVCycling

— Lloyds Bank Tour of Britain (@TourofBritain) August 28, 2024

Velogames is up and running:

https://www.velogames.com/

Anyone who’s previously entered a team into the STW Grand Tours League for either the Vuelta, the Giro or the TDF will automatically join again if they enter a team – I can see there are a few of us in there already

For anyone who’s not done it before, you can spend 100 points on 9 riders in various categories, and the riders score points depending on how they do each day / overall. I’ve never quite figured it out but I pick riders who I want to do well and tend to finish mid table. Once you’ve entered your team, join league ID 347313627

Anyone know of a live tracker? Would be good to know where they are to save me missing them because they’ve gone through early.

Live tracker on Procyclingstats

I watched a fair chunk of the race on tv today. hopefully I’ll catch the highlights for the rest of the race week.

Drove part of yesterday’s route on my way to kelso to see Pete, Ned and David (we’re pals now) farmer out cutting the blackthorn hedging along the road. Been told but not confirmed that there were a few punctures.

Apparently our youth academy riders are leading them out from the neutralised start on Friday morning, really hope that gets some coverage.

I’m assuming it’s not the balance bike group, but that would also be cool.

It passes very close to my house on Friday and I’m not at work. It would be rude not to!

We’re in Suffolk this weekend so it’ll be a visit to Lowestoft and Felixstowe to watch the start and finish of the stage.

Fingers crossed it stays dry.

Itv4 coverage from 1045 today, three cat 1s for them to get over, expected to be harder than yesterday.

So watching on ITV4 at the moment. Lots of coverage on boring tree lined roads, about to head across a nice picturesque bridge and through the market town of Yarm which would make some lovely TV pictures and they cut to adverts. Come back and they’re out the other side and back on dull country lanes.

Is this an intentional snub to Yarm? Have they not contributed financially so the race organisers have told ITV to not show it as they pass through? Seems a bit odd otherwise at this stage of the race when there wasn’t much else happening.

Sod’s law it comes to my home town on Saturday when I am not in residence.  I’d have liked to have had a ride out and watched some of it.

Lovely day for it in the Borders.

Rode over to Kelso for the start, then high-tailed it back for Dingleton and then back to Kelso for a late lunch and the finish – beers in the sun next to the podium.  Rode home.

Felt really well organised and well attended right across the route.

Sat at home working watching them ride on many of the roads that I do which is great.
It’s just a shame that if you didn’t know of Ned & David then you would think that they didn’t know of cycling outside of the Tour de France given their commentary. Which is a shame as I know that they are abreast of the whole sport – I just wish they’d mention it more

@intheborders

Aye, it was a grand day and good to see so many folk out on a Tuesday.

Biked up to Scott’s View for the first lap,then down to St Boswells for a beer/lunch and watched them charge across at the blocked A68 crossing.

Its nice to see it back through Derbyshire, the forecast is very good for Friday, i may go down to no mans lane towards Dale Abbey to see the riders come through. It will be a blink and you miss it affair, i usually go when its in East Leake and over near Ilkeston a couple of year back too.

Tempted to go the velodrome but i guess it will be pretty busy there, maybe not as busy as when i went to Leeds city centre for the tour de france opening stage start. Is there usually much to see at a start, the riders sign on? Or is that just grand tours haha.

Anyone else embarrassed about the state of the roads they are having to ride on?

It’s coming past my area today – I live in the middle of a loop in the course so I’m trying to work out from the road book timings if I can see the start then shoot over to one of the climbs before they get there, and I have to get home to host a Zoom call!

Feels quite cool knowing Remco, Alaphilippe and crew will be popping up on the Strava leader boards.  I think I’ll move down a few places, like 1000th to 1100th…  Although I’m still above Lars Boom on a local road descent! He’s not been back to defend it since 2014 though.

 Is there usually much to see at a start, the riders sign on? Or is that just grand tours haha.

All the teams were presented at Kelso at the start, used a lorry (also used for the podium etc).

 Is there usually much to see at a start, the riders sign on? Or is that just grand tours haha.

Remco & co being top of the leaderboard is super cool; it’s just one of the coolest parts of the sport that we get to see them and then ride the same roads, just a t̶i̶n̶y̶ b̶i̶t̶ lot slower, albeit with traffic.

Anyone else embarrassed about the state of the roads they are having to ride on?

I know what you mean, but I’m pragmatic about it. It’s a relatively minor week-long race – a UCI ProSeries tour – so the same level as the Tour(s) of Turkey or Hungary, for example, or minor races in Spain or Portugal. Those races also have a mix of road surface conditions, so it’s not unusual to find rough roads. British roads are certainly not freshly relaid Giro or Tour surfaces, but then why would they be? All the years of chronic underfunding, heavier vehicles, population density, the weather, the topography.
If/when we become a cycling nation…

i may go down to no mans lane towards Dale Abbey to see the riders come through

Should be a few Ilkeston CC folks up there watching our hill climb times being obliterated! Follow along behind them after that to West Hallam and say Hi at the ICC stand!

It’s a relatively minor week-long tour, and a UCI ProSeries tour

Aye, it’s (probaly) as much to do with the fact that these are the only roads that they are ‘allowed’ to use/close.

Back in 2012 we had an awful bit of road resurfaced locally ahead of the Tour coming through. I can only assume that Derbyshire County Council had a risk assessment outlining the cost of causing a career ending injury to Wiggins and Cavendish!

12 years on and it’s still in great shape, they actually did it properly!

British Cycling pre drive the entire route with local authorities and then traffic light issues to identify what needs to be fixed, what would be nice to fix and what is okay. The overwhelming majority of the Scottish Borders stage was green light, with only a tiny amount of areas needing re-done. Apparently BC were very impressed with the surface, despite local Facebook commentators regularly getting furious about the roads.

Is there usually much to see at a start, the riders sign on? Or is that just grand tours haha.

Yes, you get all the riders presented, the team parking is normally very nearby, riders warming up etc.

The finish yesterday on the sea front at Redcar was very accessible too although that can be a bit hit and miss depending on the route layout – if the team parking is spread out or a little distance off, the riders just disappear!

Damp start this morning in Sheffield but supposed to brighten up a bit later.

Huge crowds yesterday on Saltburn Bank including the TdF Beefeaters who took up station outside the pub/hotel on the hill and just engaged wonderfully with all the staff and the crowds around them.

Oh wow, we’ve spent the day with the smiliest most happy humans @tdfbeefeaters we’ve possibly encountered…and of course, incredible cyclists @TourofBritain You’ve utterly lifted our week. Well done Spa team too, our own team of happy dancing humans ❤️ @SaintPiranTeam #Saltburn pic.twitter.com/lMZPuXneUK

— TheSpaHotelSaltburn (@TheSpaSaltburn) September 4, 2024

That video is brilliant.