Road Bike Racing - Tour of Britain

ICI have a provisional date in September 2002 for the revival of the Tour of Britain.

HOORAY!!!!!

A few hangups tho' - the dates clash with a cricket tour which chennel 4 is covering and it also clashes with the Vuelta - so they've got their work cut out to get David Millar and other teams on board.

Without TV coverage and home-grown hero it'll be tricky to get it going

Stew

Man, that IS tough scheduling! You have to assume that they thought it was the best they could do, but still... It seems anyone whose team is invited to the Vuelta will be riding the "plain in Spain". They may not have a choice. Maybe they should have scheduled it during the TDF. This year they could have had Mercury, Mercatone Uno, and Saeco. Who knows what "scraps" Monsieur LeBlanc will toss out next year. :D

I would be interested to hear some history related to this. Like where it has run before; distance; etc. Anyone?

And is it possible that they are trying to start out as a lower category race that would not draw the top teams?

In the end, I can't think of a better place to watch a bike race (though I had never thought of it before) than England. Perhaps they could run it like the World Championships - many laps of a smaller course.

Then I could find a course-side pub that serves Badger Best or Gales HSB and make a day of it. :D

Cheers...Gary

Originally posted by stewartp
ICI have a provisional date in September 2002 for the revival of the Tour of Britain.

HOORAY!!!!!

A few hangups tho' - the dates clash with a cricket tour
Stew

Mmmmmm! Cricket. Never understood the English fascination with it, never will. :D

Worst thing that's happened in recent years is Channel 4 giving up the TdF coverage

Then I could find a course-side pub that serves Badger Best

Better make it the West Country then Gary :beer:

Personally I'd go for the Badger Champion though :beer: :thumbup:

Richard

Well that's OK with me, though BBB has been my fave since 1989.

Wiltshire (even though Blandford Forum is actually in Devon, I guess) in the SW, Kent in the SE, and Yorkshire in the N for some Theakston's XB with an Old Pec final pint would be great. After all, it is a small country. :) But I love it dearly!

As for cricket, I tried hard to understand by reading, and even watching on TV. But until I watched part of a match in person at the Shepperton Cricket Club I was very fuzzy about it. When watching in person, it becomes almost obvious.

Cheers...Gary

just on the subject of cricket, gary, the netherlands have a very strong cricket team. some of the dutch national players play in the english county game. it always seems strange to see nations not associated with cricket playing the game but it's starting to become a global sport more and more.


as for english tours, we've pretty much always had one. in the 80's we had the 'milk race' which was a 2 week stage race. then we had the 'kelloggs' tour and when kelloggs pulled out prudential stepped in and sponsored a weeklong stage race. it attracted all the top teams and going off memory erik dekker (rabobank) won it one year of it's 2 (?) year stint. one of the stages finished in my home town of blackpool, george hincapie (u.s postal) won that stage. i even managed to go to watch the race in the hills near me, then get back for the stage finish to see hincapie win. great to see cycling's big names in your home town and cheer on a workmate who rode it too.

as for who will ride this new tour (5 day tour - rated 2.3 on the UCI ranking), if all the top teams send their best riders to the vuelta, they will still come to the uk to ride but just send another team. it will attract big teams and their riders, a uk tour always does. as a brit, it's good to see we've got another tour again, not sure who the sponsor is yet though. as for TV coverage maybe ITV will show it as they're showing the tour next year after channel 4 pulled out. ITV will show the tour live next year on ITV digital and show highlights on ITV1 in the evening. ITV showing cycling who would have thought!?

cabledonut.

Originally posted by cabledonut
ITV will show it as they're showing the tour next year after channel 4 pulled out. ITV will show the tour live next year on ITV digital and show highlights on ITV1 in the evening. ITV showing cycling who would have thought!?

cabledonut.

Didn't know that. Someone at ITV showing some common sense at last! How will they fit it in between all the quiz shows, soaps and "I want to be a pop star" docudramas?

Originally posted by chewa


Didn't know that. Someone at ITV showing some common sense at last! How will they fit it in between all the quiz shows, soaps and "I want to be a pop star" docudramas?

yes it was announced a few months ago that ITV have signed a £5M deal to show the tour for the next 3(?) years. they did actually have a tour highlights program for this years tour, but it wasn't shown until about 1am. so i hope that bit changes and they show it at a reasonable time.

as for the scheduling you're right where will they fit it in? those god damn 'i wanna be a popstar/soapstar/singer/dancer/model/pain in the ******** arse on tv' docudramas seem to be the in thing at the mo. maybe they'll show a 'i want to ride the tour de france' one? there was even a 'dogstars' one! let's find a dog soapstar!? NO, LET'S NOT! british tv is getting much worse.

cabledonut.

i was just looking through the pics i took of the 'prutour' when it came to town. i thought i'd put up this photo i took of chris boardman after the stage. i've seen him looking better!

cabledonut.

p.s sorry about the pic quality, but i'm no wizz when it comes to scanners!

The Tour of Britain has passed though my home town of Liverpool over the years. In 1992ish it passed within 100yards of my house and I manged to recover a Motorola Team Bidon from the road side. A year or two later I went to Liverpool city centre and was standing on the outside of a cobbled corner - Bo Hamburger broke away, the next thing I knew his Bidon bounced out of his cage across the cobbles and landed at my feet :)

The Prutour passed over a climb called "Fiddlers Elbow" last time it was ran, but due to the death of a marshall it was ran at a steady pace. The Fiddlers is about 20 miles from where I live now, the side they climbed is normally descended at about 50-60mph