I for one can't wait for this and shall be booking a few days leave to watch this spectacle when it arrives in Yorkshire. I must admit I'd read that Welcome to Yorkshire had put a bid in and were battling with places like Barcelona, Florence and Edinburgh. Initially I thought they had no chance and recalled Manchester bidding to host the Olympics a few years ago (yes, it may sound bizarre but for those too young to know otherwise it's true!)...I thought this was a no hoper of a bid but I guess it just goes to show if you don't ask you don't get!

I'm sure there will be plenty of nay Sayers moaning about the fact roads are closed etc but I'm sure the crowds will be immense for what is one of sports great free shows.

Apparently it’s due to start in Leeds but I’ll be hoping to see it head through York where I live.

I’ve watched the tour on TV for 20 years and was fortunate enough to witness it live in France when on holiday a few years ago so to see it on my doorstep (literally if I’m really lucky!) will be something to look forward to.

Bring it on…I can’t wait!

PS…I did look on other sports and disappointingly saw no mention of it there and indulge me mods but maybe this news deserves a thread in the limelight of the sin bin!

The route is to be announced 17th Jan (I think) but I'd be surprised if it didn't go through York on one day given that Welcome to Yorkshire is the county's tourism promoter (and yesterday won an international award for their work) and will be using the event as a huge promotional tool, then you can bet that the likes of Harrogate and York will be on the agenda, a sure bet is the climb up the Cow and Calf in Ilkley and then you've got the whole of the west of the county with as many hill climbs as you want to shake a fist at - problem with heading out to York is that you're on very flat countryside, not that Le Tour is all about hill climbing of course.

Up Sutton Bank. in and out of the Yorkshire Moors and ice-creams in Scarborough?
Lovely.

Up Sutton Bank. in and out of the Yorkshire Moors and ice-creams in Scarborough?
Lovely.

Given something like 50% of the daytime French TV viewers watch it for the scenery I expect nothing less than three laps of Bradford.

Off to the Alps next year, and possibly Ventoux if I can figure out how to get there. Will be nice to see both start and finish the following year,

As you say it's not all about hill climbs but I'm sure they could keep them occupied with a nice ride out from Leeds to York then head for the Wolds or Moors and maybe even the coast and then head back to Leeds for a great bunch sprint! Having said that I can just imagine a bunch sprint on a glorious sun kissed day on the seafront at Scarborough beneath the castle which would be a great spectacle with the sea on one side, castle and cliffs on the other and gulls crapping from above! I'd even settle for a nice breakaway that get's hunted down though they often start with a time trial...whichever they go for I'll be there and enjoying not only the race itself but the atmosphere. Looking forward to the route announcement and firming up my plans...hopefully a quick wizz through York and then exit via Hull Rd would do me very nicely so I can rather selfishly nip put and watch it from my doorstep !

LOL...maybe fish chips and peas followed by knickerbocker glories at The Harbour Bar..they'll have earned it!

We can get all them lazy unemployed out of their beds, and from behind their curtains, and make them clean up all the road grafitti after Le Tour has passed through.

Let them earn their dole money, lazy northern scroungers?

I used to do the Wetherby to Filey ride every year, me and 1500 other idiots up at stupid o'clock in the morning queueing at the start at Wetherby racecourse, took me all day to do the 70 miles at a leaisurely pace and frequent stops for coffee and lashings of chocolate cake.

We thought we did quite well to do it in 7 hours every year and then catch the provided transport back to Wetherby.

But every year the cycle clubs of gaunt boney-d lycra clad gawky kids would just take the gloss off it by passing us going back the other way before we'd even got to the second stop (about 20 miles) having set off at the crack of dawn and already been to Scarborough, what a set of barstards.

You must be a nipper. You always have Jaconellis ice cream after Fish n chips in Scarborough.

Obligatory on a visit to Scarborough

Where's the best place for me to stand and sell the riders drugs?

I'll let you know if they get as far east as 'Ull (I somehow doubt it

).

Great that it's coming [iup north.[/i

Just about my favourite annual sporting event.

Michael Winner..not my fave person (or i suspect yours..is he anybodys?) but he did give the Harbour Bar a good write up and no mention of Jaconellis!

When I was a kid on holiday in the early to late 60s we always went to Scarborough and it was always a dream of mine to go into the Harbour Bar and order a knickerbocker glory, but they were always too expensive and the Harbour Bar being an "American Coffee Bar", ie it served espresso, very exotic, it always attracted the scooter boys and my mother would never take us in there.

A couple of years ago we met some members of my wifes family in Scarborough on a nice sunny day and as we strolled the prom I was telling my brother in law all bout my childhood spent on the beach and on the donkeys and how I'd never quite got around to having a knickerbocker glory in the Harbour Bar.

Like a fool he offered to buy us all one - well over £40 he spent on ice creams but I got to sit at the bar on a stool and the interior was exactly how I remembered it, 50 years is a long time to wait for a knickerbocker glory but it tasted even better because a geordie was paying for it

Whats very interesting to me is that I can't see the Harbour Bar in the same light as everyone else as whilst researching my family history, my great grandmother used to live in the passage "The Bolts" which is right behind Harbour Bar. They were poor, fish hawkers and lived in a one roomed house. I've seen the back of Harbour Bar and it doesn't stir glamorous memories for me, only sad ones of how my family lived in Scarborough. You'd think with them living in places like "The Bolts", "Long Greece Steps", "Custom House Steps", "The Staith", they would be nice places but sadly not. All their houses are long gone, except "The Staith" which is now Lifeboat Steps and their house is now The Anchorage Club

Hull City Council talking about trying to get [iLe Tour[/i to incorporate a journey across the Humber Bridge.

Would be nice to see it happen but I doubt it.

I said to Mr HWS I bet it doesn't come to East Yorkshire

IMO there is more to Yorkshire than Leeds and York. I bet the people of South Yorkshire are saying the same too.

My first comment was that the route that the Tour of Britain took on the last occasion it started and finished in Leeds would be the one of choice, it took in a bit of Nth Yorkshire around the Harrogate area, the climb up Ilkley Moor (that will DEFINTELY be on the cards, put the mortgage on that), a quick tour of the 'fax/Huddersfield area and then down to touch South Yorks on Holme Moss and Snake Pass before heading back to Leeds.

On the other hand the Welcome to Yorks people took the Le Tour people to both Harrogate and York to sell the area to them and as someone else has pointed out, the first days of the tour rarely take in any hilly country so a leasurely ride across the Vale of York with one climb up over the Wolds might just be on the cards - get your El Diablo outfit ready

Wonder if [iDidi[/i the [iDevil[/i will make an appearance this side of the channel?



He's been a permanent fixture for the last 20 years.