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Cycling stars take to Harewood ahead of Tour

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Olympic silver medal-winning cyclist Lizzie Armitstead has given the Harewood House grounds a two-wheeled test ahead of the Tour de France.

The 25-year-old Otley road racer joined 2006 Tour champion Oscar Pereiro, ITV Cycling presenter Ned Boulting and a number of other cycling stars in a teaser video filmed to tee up the Dare 2b Yorkshire Festival of Cycling.

The three-day event from July 4 to 6 is being hosted in the 1,000-acre Harewood Estate as the world’s greatest riders speed through during the Grand Depart stage one from Leeds to Harrogate on July 5.

Boulting said: “I’ve covered many Tours de France for TV but the Tour de France in Yorkshire really is going to be something special.

“For me, there was no better way to get in the mood than to dress up as a butler at the grand Harewood House – serving champagne is a skill I didn’t know I had until now.”

The likes of Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome are set to race into the grounds of Harewood, travelling up the driveway to the grand entrance to Harewood House.

All this will take place just metres from the festival camp site, where festival-goers will be entertained throughout the full Grand Depart weekend.

Rides, time trials, family rides and other mass-participation events will be taking place, with shopping, entertainment and big screens set up on site to view the rest of the race.

High profile guests including Lizzie Armitstead and Oscar Pereiro will also be on hand.

Visit www.festivalofcycling.org for further information.


Yorkshire rider Thwaites wild about prospect of making debut in world’s ‘greatest bike race’ with German team

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Scott Thwaites has been told he has as good a chance as anyone on the NetApp Endura team of making the start line for this year’s Tour de France, writes Nick Westby.

The prospects of the 23-year-old (pictured right and far right) debuting in the world’s greatest bike race that begins in his home county on July 5 were boosted this week when the German team he rides for were given a wild card into this year’s race. And team manager Ralph Denk says Thwaites can achieve this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – if he makes the improvements the team demand of him. Denk said: “We had a meeting with all the riders at our training camp in Mallorca in January where we told them that every rider has the chance to qualify.

“We will judge our nine-man team selection on performances and then do a pre-selection of the riders at the end of February.

“They will each have the same chance of making that 15-man pre-selection squad.

“If Scott works hard, if he stays motivated, if he improves and shows development, he will be in contention.”

Denk (pictured right) and the NetApp management need to see immediate improvement from Thwaites if he is to make the team’s preliminary roster.

A big month begins for him at the Mallorca Challenge – a four-day series of races – from February 9.

The former two-time winner of the Otley Grand Prix and national circuit race champion, earned a top-10 finish at last year’s high-profile Tour of Britain before, by his own admission, fizzling out at the end of his first year in the professional peloton.

Denk said: “Scott did a good job in 2013. You have to understand the size of the step-up he was making, he was effectively going from the second division of pro cycling to the first.

“He did some very good races, but he had problems with his climbing because the races are longer and harder and he needs to do more races like that.

“For a young rider like Scott there is a lot to improve.

“At the end of the season though we were happy with him and we are looking forward to working with him very closely to get him up to the level we want him to be, and where he wants to be.

“He has the potential and talent to become a very good rider.

“Scott showed his talents last season in the mid-level races, so we have worked and planned together with our sports directors on a plan to suit Scott.

“He will ride for his own success in some races and the team will support him, and sometimes he will race to try and get the team success. In both instances we will support him.”

Saddle up and ride the roads that will host cycling elite this summer

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Yorkshire has a myriad number of cycling clubs which cater for thousands of riders the length and breadth of the county.

Every weekend they flood the roads of Yorkshire on training rides and races.

For those cycling disciples to now think the best in the world will be cycling the same very roads this summer, is beyond comprehension.

Ben Wood, pictured, a 34-year-old cyclist from Keighley, who works in the industry at All Terrain Cycles, best sums up the feeling amongst local cyclists about the prospect of seeing Mark Cavendish and Chris Froome whizz past.

“It’s like the football World Cup coming to your local parks; like the Brazilian World Cup team turning up and having a game of footy with you,” said Wood.

“Even though we won’t be riding the Tour de France, to see the best cyclists in the world riding the roads we know so well, and the chance to see them on your own turf, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and something we might never get to see again. So people need to embrace it.

“It will leave a legacy for cycling a lot longer than I think people expect. Already we’re seeing the impact with places like Otley setting up a new track. Plus at All Terrain Cycles, we’re getting so many more orders from local schools than before.

“When I went to school you did your cycling proficiency and that was it.

“Now there’s after-school clubs, cycling and BMX tracks being built. It all comes from the Olympic legacy and the two definitely go hand in hand.”

Historic estate given the once over by Armitstead ahead of visit of Le Tour

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Olympic silver medal-winning cyclist Lizzie Armitstead has given the Harewood House grounds a two-wheeled test ahead of the Tour de France.

The Otley road racer joined 2006 Tour champion Oscar Pereiro, ITV Cycling presenter Ned Boulting and a number of other cycling stars in a teaser video filmed to tee up the Dare 2b Yorkshire Festival of Cycling.

The three-day event from July 4 to 6 is being hosted in the 1,000-acre Harewood Estate as the world’s greatest riders speed through during the Grand Depart stage one from Leeds to Harrogate on July 5.

Boulting said: “The Tour de France in Yorkshire really is going to be something special. For me, there was no better way to get in the mood than to dress up as a butler at the grand Harewood House – serving champagne is a skill I didn’t know I had until now.”

The likes of Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome are set to race into the grounds of Harewood, riding up the drive to the entrance to Harewood House.

All this will take place just metres from the festival camp site, where festival-goers can enjoy rides, time trials, shopping and big screens. Visit www.festivalofcycling.org.

Book review: The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

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It was a story that had to be told…

When writer Daniel James Brown sat at the deathbed of his elderly neighbour Joe Rantz in Seattle, he stumbled across an epic true-life adventure which took nine working-class American boys into the heart of Hitler’s pre-war Berlin.

Joe – six-foot-three inches tall and still muscular in his old age – was one of a team of remarkable young men who broke the boundaries of their deprived childhood to become gold medal rowers at the infamous ‘Nazi Olympics’ of 1936.

Cast aside by his parents at an early age, abandoned and left to fend for himself in the woods of Washington State, Joe struggled to survive and turned to rowing as a way of escaping his past.

What he could never have imagined in those grim days of the Great Depression was that he would one day help to row an eight-oared boat to victory in far-off Berlin, beating the German team to the finishing line under the cold stare of the Führer himself, Adolf Hitler.

How Joe and his lifelong pals exchanged the sweat and dust of life in 1930s America for the promise of glory in Germany is an extraordinary and heart-pounding story of grace and pride, grit and determination, team spirit and pulling together to achieve a common goal.

So moved was Brown both by Joe’s amazing journey and the emotion behind it that there and then he requested the dying man’s permission to write his life story. Honoured by the proposal, Joe had only one condition… it wasn’t to be just his story; it had to be about ‘the boys in the boat.’

And it is a truly uplifting and inspirational account, one of triumph over adversity as Brown takes us on a rollercoaster ride through the lives of the boys, their families, the coaches who guided them to victory, the history of 1930s America and the science of rowing.

Using meticulous research and an array of photographs, Brown helps us to feel the pain of hours of tough training, the inevitable self-doubt, the fight to find the right rowing combination and the joy of making the boat fly across the water.

We also get to understand the passion of London-born George Yeoman Pocock, the leading designer and builder of racing shells in the 20th century. Pocock achieved international recognition by providing the eight-oared craft which took the American crew to their gold medal in 1936.

Beyond his achievements as a boat builder, his influence, promotion and philosophy of rowing inspired countless oarsmen and rowing coaches. Rowing, he claimed, ‘is the finest art there is. It’s a symphony of motion.’

And meanwhile, stroke by stroke, race by race, Joe regained his shattered self-regard, dared to trust in others again and to find his way back home…

He died in 2007, just a few months after Brown interviewed him for the book. The author’s final tribute to Joe is a tale of resilience and determination, full of lyricism and unexpected beauty, rising above the grand sweep of history and capturing instead the purest essence of what it means to be alive.

The story that had to be told could not have been written more eloquently.

(Pan, paperback, £8.99)

Race on for Tour’s starting line

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THREE Yorkshire forces involved in the policing of the Grand Départ have stopped officers taking leave, at least temporarily, for the days the event is running.

North Yorkshire Police is restricting leave for officers, PCSOs and a range of staff roles between June 27 and July 11.

West Yorkshire, the lead force for the event, will restrict leave between July 4 and 6 and South Yorkshire Police says no new applications for leave will be accepted for July 5 and 6.

Arrangements for policing of the event have not yet been completed and North Yorkshire Assistant Chief Constable Ken McIntosh said the current restrictions were in place while resources for the event were examined.

He said the forces were using the experience of the Olympic Torch run in 2012 to ensure the safety and security of the public.

Mr McIntosh said: “Visitors are not expected to come for just the two days the Tour is with us, but also on the days preceding and post the event.

“These requirements are reviewed on a regular basis and we are keeping staff informed. The police will be a small part of this significant event. The organisers anticipate that there will be a large number of volunteers assisting with the marshalling of the route.”

Chief Superintendent Barry South of West Yorkshire Police said the force had “considerable experience in dealing with large scale public events and planning for this one is at an advanced stage”.

He added: “As part of this, as is normal procedure, we are controlling annual leave on 4, 5 and 6 July until we are sure of the exact level of resourcing required.”

The Yorkshire Post reported last month that half a million pounds is to be spent on policing the Tour de France by North Yorkshire Police despite earlier claims that the organisers had not consulted the force over the cost of ensuring public safety for the event. The costs for policing in West and South Yorkshire were unclear with no figures forthcoming from either force.

‘County of champions’ set for chance to shine

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WITH just six months before the Tour de France comes to the region, the head of the organisation which brought it about has promised the Grand Départ will be “Yorkshire’s moment to shine.”

{http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/debate/columnists/gary-verity-a-county-of-champions-with-video-1-6350480|Writing in today’s Yorkshire Post|Leader article}, Welcome to Yorkshire’s chief executive Gary Verity announces that the event “will turn Yorkshire yellow” as plans are revealed to create a carpet of yellow flowers that will surround the route of the race when it starts on July 5.

Mr Verity said: “With exactly six months to go now until the Tour de France arrives, it gives me immense pride to see how Yorkshire is fully behind this event.

“We’re a county of champions. We’ve produced some of the best cyclists both past and present from Brian Robinson, Beryl Burton, Barry Hoban and Malcolm Elliott to the Downing brothers, Ben Swift, Josh Edmondson to Lizzie Armitstead and, of course, to Mark Cavendish, an ambassador for our bid and an honorary Yorkshireman.”

A private company called TdFHUB2014 Ltd has been established to oversee the organisation of the two Yorkshire stages. Based in Leeds Town Hall, owned by funding body UK Sport and headed by chief executive Nicky Roche, formerly director of operations for London 2012 at the Government Olympic Executive, a spokesman last night said that plans for the race are “on time and on budget”.

A separate report giving details on Leeds’s plans for hosting the race admits “much work is still to be done” but states that “significant steps” have already been taken in preparing for an occasion that should be worth more than £100m to the UK economy.

NetApp ambition is good news for Thwaites

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Team NetApp Endura, for whom Burley-in-Wharfedale’s Scott Thwaites is a rider, is targeting a place in the Tour de France this summer as it’s major aim for 2014.

The German team requires a wild card to get into the race that begins in Yorkshire on July 5, but feel they did enough in last year’s Vuelta a Espana to prove they are capable of competing.

Team manager Ralph Denk said: “The Tour de France is the target we have set for ourselves. With our successes at the Vuelta a España, we showed just what potential this team has.

“Year by year we have set ourselves ever higher targets and have always backed this up with results. Consequently, we should now strive to participate in the biggest race of the year.”

Thwaites, 23, is entering his second year with the team and stated in the Yorkshire Post last Saturday that his own aim this year is to force his way into contention for a place in NetApp’s Tour team.

Tour de France organisers hand out wild cards to a number of teams each year.


Tour de France: Rider profile - Josh Edmondson

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Take a look at one of Yorkshire’s hopefuls for a place on the start line of the Tour de France in his home county - Josh Edmondson.

Yorkshire’s hopefuls

Name: Josh Edmondson

Born: Leeds

Age: 21

Team: Team Sky

Honours: 2010 finished fourth in junior world road race championships; 2013 supported Mark Cavendish in British team at world road race championships.

He says: “I certainly think I could do make the team this year, but it’s going to be tough.

“I have to really prove myself at the start of this year, from December really in the camps, I have to start impressing.

“I’m still learning and have a lot of learning to do. I’ve already changed a lot as a rider throughout my first year.

“In the amateurs I was good at each aspect. In my first year with Sky I learned how to handle a race better and my climbing has come on because it had to. When they go in a pro race, they go so much faster.

“I went from being in the top few in the amateur ranks to just hanging on.

“Towards the end of 2013 I felt as though I could contribute more, where I could attack at points.

“Sometimes I think I’m only 21 and I’ve got time on my side.

“But then I see guys like Nairo Quintana and I think, well, maybe I haven’t got time to waste.”

Tour de France: Rider profile - Scott Thwaites

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Take a look at one of Yorkshire’s hopefuls for a place on the start line of the Tour de France in his home county - Scott Thwaites.

Name: Scott Thwaites

Born: Burley-in-Wharfedale

Age: 23

Team: NetApp Endura

Honours: Two-time Otley Grand prix winner; U23 national champion on road and mountain bike.

He says: “The Tour coming to Yorkshire is massive. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and to be at the level where I have a chance of being involved is incredible.

“It’s come when I’m still young and it’s going to be a big ask, but it has given me that added motivation to work really hard this year.

“A couple of the world tour teams have lost sponsorship and Europcar, who are traditionally a rival of ours for the wild card spot have moved up, so that’s opened an opportunity for us.

“We showed in the Vuelta a Espana that we can ride a grand tour, win a stage, be competitive and get a guy (Leopold Konig) in the general classification hunt, so our profile has certainly been raised.

“We feel we deserve the chance.

“On a personal level, I want to win races. If I get the chance to ride the bigger races, hopefully, I can show what I can do.

“That’s why I’m training so hard in the Dales - because as well as there being no better place to train when the weather is good - I know I’ve got to get into the best condition that I can.”

Tour de France: Rider profile - Ben Swift

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Take a look at one of Yorkshire’s hopefuls for a place on the start line of the Tour de France in his home county - Ben Swift.

Name: Ben Swift

Born: Rotherham

Age: 26

Team: Team Sky

Honours: 2007 Tour of Britain ‘King of the Mountains’; 2011 completed the Tour de France; 2012 scratch world champion.

He says: “If I can get a lot more wins this year, then that pushes me up the heirarchy a little bit. It’s all about the Tour de France team, which will be very hard to get on because of the emphasis placed on general classification riders.

“I know how hard it is for a rider to get selected for the Tour team, and obviously I’ll be disappointed if I don’t get selected for it. Then again, if you do get selected you’re there on merit, you know you’re not just there because it’s started in Yorkshire and you’re a Yorkshireman.

“You’re there because you deserve to be there.

“We’ve got a lot of strong guys in the team and it’s probably going to be one of the toughest targets of my career but I’ll give it my best shot because it’ll be the most rewarding achievement and because it will mean I’m in the best form of my life.

“The 2014 Tour starting in Yorkshire has given me an extra impetus, a focus, a long-term goal.”

Tour de France: Yorkshire’s cycling heritage - Ed Clancy

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The only non-road specialist in the county’s impressive list of superstar cyclists, Ed Clancy is nevertheless one of its most decorated.

As a track cyclist of the highest order, the 28-year-old, who was born in Barnsley and raised in Huddersfield, is Yorkshire’s most decorated Olympian.

He won team pursuit gold at both the Beijing and London Games and also added a bronze in the multi-discipline omnium in 2012.

He has also won five world titles.

Tour de France: Yorkshire’s cycling heritage - Beryl Burton

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Yorkshire was home to one of the greatest female cyclists of all time in Harrogate’s Beryl Burton.

Burton was born in Morley, Leeds, in 1937 and was a pioneer for British women cyclists.

From the late 1950s to the 1980s, she won seven world championship titles and 96 domestic honours.

To show her versatility, two of those titles came on the road, with the other five won on the track.

Arguably her greatest feat was achieved in 1967, when she set a women’s record for the 12-hour time trial of 277.5 miles.

That was not eclipsed by a man for another two years, and still stands as the women’s record today.

Beryl died in 1996.

Tour de France: Yorkshire’s cycling heritage - Lizzie Armitstead

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Yorkshire’s finest road cyclist is Otley’s Lizzie Armitstead, a two-time national champion and an Olympic silver medallist, after finishing second at London 2012.

Armistead first rode a bike properly when she was 15 and proved a natural. She won a host of Track World Cup races and a world title in the winter of 2008-09.

Armitstead won the national title for the first time that year, and regained it in Glasgow in 2013.

She delivered her finest moment up The Mall in London in the teeming rain in 2012, when she finished runner-up to Marianne Vos in the Olympic road race.

She is a vocal campaigner for equal rights for women in cycling.

Tour de France: Yorkshire’s cycling heritage - Barry Hoban

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Until Mark Cavendish came along, Barry Hoban had a little slice of British sporting history that looked like it would never be surpassed.

The man from Wakefield held the distinction of having won more stages of the Tour de France than any other UK rider.

He won eight between 1967 and 1975, the first coming the day after Tom Simpson’s death.

In the 1969 and 1973 Tours, Hoban won twice, and in the former, he even managed to win successive stages.

One record still stands, the most Tours completed by a Briton, 11 of the 12 he started from 1965-1978.

In 2009 he was inducted into the British Cycling Hall of Fame.


Tour de France: Yorkshire’s cycling heritage - Brian Robinson

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Where Barry Hoban and Tom Simpson followed, Brian Robinson led. Born in Huddersfield in 1930, he joined his local cycling club at age 13 and would go on to be a pioneer in the Tour de France.

Robinson was the first Briton to complete the race, doing so for the British team Hercules in 1955.

He was the first Briton to win a stage in 1958. Robinson crossed the line second on stage seven into Brest but was promoted into first because Arigo Padovan, who crossed the line first, was relegated for his tactics in a hot sprint.

A year later, Robinson splintered the peloton by winning the 20th stage by a massive 20 minutes.

He retired at 33 but has remained active and has been a big part of his home county’s bid to bring the Tour de France to Yorkshire.

Tour de France: the teams

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Which teams might make the start line for the Tour de France that begins in Yorkshire this summer. Here’s our guide to the big teams.

Team Sky

Nationality - Great Britain

Leaders - Chris Froome, Sir Bradley Wiggins

British interest - Geraint Thomas, Pete Kennaugh, Luke Rowe, Ian Stannard, Jonathan Tiernan-Locke

Yorkshire interest - Ben Swift, Josh Edmondson

BMC Racing

Nationality - USA

Leaders - Cadel Evans, Tejay van Garderen

British interest - Steve Cummings

Omega Pharma-QuickStep

Nationality - Belgium

Leaders - Mark Cavendish, Tony Martin

British interest - Andrew Fenn

Movistar

Nationality - Spain

Leaders - Nairo Quintana, Alejandro Valverde

British interest - Alex Dowsett

Cannondale

Nationality - Italy

Leaders - Peter Sagan, Ivan Basso

Europcar

Nationality - France

Leaders - Thomas Voeckler, Pierre Rolland

Tinkoff-Saxo

Nationality - Denmark

Leaders - Alberto Contador, Nicholas Roche

NetApp Endura

(need a wild card)

Nationality - Germany

Leaders - Leopold Konig

British interest - Erick Rowsell, Jonathan McEvoy

Yorkshire interest - Scott Thwaites

Garmin Sharp

Nationality - United States

Leaders - Ryder Hesjedal, Tyler Farrar

British interest - David Millar

Orica GreenEDGE

Nationality - Australia

Leaders - Simon Gerrans, Matt Goss

British interest - Adam Yates, Simon Yates

Giant Shimano

Nationality - Holland

Leaders - Marcel Kittel

Katusha

Nationality - Russia

Leaders - Joaquim Rodriquez

Ag2r-La Mondialle

Nationality - France

Leaders - Christophe Riblon, Carlos Betancur

Belkin ProCycling

Nationality - Holland

Leaders - Bauke Mollema

Lotto-Belisol

Nationality - Belgium

Leaders - Andre Griepel

Astana

Nationality - Kazakhstan

Leaders - Vincenzo Nibali, Jakob Fuglsang

Trek

Nationality - United States

Leaders - Andy Schleck, Franck Schleck

Tour de France: Yorkshire’s cycling heritage - Tom Simpson

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Depending on how you look at it, Tom Simpson, of Doncaster, is either the most tragic of Yorkshire’s cycling legends, or the most iconic.

He was the first Briton to win the world road race title in 1965, the significance of that win growing with every passing year until Mark Cavendish won it three years ago.

The tragedy came in his death and the mystery surrounding it. Chasing the yellow jersey on the 13th stage of the 1967 Tour, Simpson collapsed and died, reportedly from a mixture of amphetamines and alcohol, a mile from the summit of Mont Ventoux.

A plaque on Ventoux that marks the place he died has become a shrine for cyclists.

Tour de France: Programme of events

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It’s not just about two days of racing here in Yorkshire, there’s a whole host of events centred around the greatest bike race on the planet coming to the White Rose county.

Programme

Thursday March 27

Start of Cultural Festival which runs until July 6

Le Grand Depart 100 days dinner

Thursday July 3

Team presentation at First Direct Arena, Leeds

Friday July 4

Le Grand Depart Eve of Tour dinner

Saturday July 5

Stage 1, 190km, Leeds to Harrogate

Sunday July 6

Stage 2, 200km, York to Sheffield

Monday July 7

Stage 3, 159km, Cambridge to London before race crosses Channel and into France

Video: Tour de France Grand Depart Trophy goes on view in Leeds

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THE official Grand Départ Trophy for the Tour de France has arrived in Leeds as the start of the much-anticipated cycle road race approaches.

Leeds City Council leader Coun Keith Wakefield joined council chief executive Tom Riordan and Welcome to Yorkshire’s Gary Verity in unveiling the silver centrepiece before the world famous event begins in Leeds in less than six months’ time.

The trophy, which is presented by Tour de France organisers each year to the hosts of the Grand Départ of the race, is now on public display outside the council chamber in Leeds Civic Hall.

The start of the 2014 Tour de France will take place on The Headrow in the shadow of Leeds Town Hall on the morning of Saturday 5 July.

The world’s leading riders will then follow a route out of the city centre through Moortown and Alwoodley before heading through the historic Harewood Estate and on to Otley, Ilkley and Skipton before a loop through the Yorkshire Dales on the way to the finish of stage one in Harrogate.

Stage two takes the riders on a challenging hilly route from York to Sheffield, while the final day of the tour in the UK starts in Cambridge and finishes in London.

Click the screen to see more.

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