Tour de France

Back on the Tour de France route yesterday, walking rather than cycling I better stress, with the intention of identifying a place to watch the whizz-by next Sunday.

The City of Sheffield section, we're talking about a place with rather extensive boundaries here, starts shortly after Langsett and its' polka-dotted tea rooms. Moorland country; up and down; up and down. Messages on the road, written before or after Wiggo's non-selection I'm not sure, and considerable numbers of bovine spectators:







Into the glorious little village of Bradfield, where yellow bikes abound, and up the hill, past the beer festival site, to a road junction which has now taken on the identity of Côte de Bradfield. A category 4 climb with a view up the valley to Strines. This looks the place for me:









Thereafter the route runs level before dropping down to the valley of the Don and the steep ascent of the wonderfully-named Côte d'Oughtibridge. Car parking in farmers' fields along this stretch. I'm not sure how the deal works remembering the road will be closed for hours either side of the race. Perhaps the all-important small print is on the back of the sign:

thanks for the pictures and info Nick.  looks like they will pedal past the house where my Mum was brought up.  Castle Bents which is on Kirk Edge Road after the climb up to High Bradfield

I hope so. If listening to "tram talk" is any gauge of local opinion there seems an awful lot of negativity. From what I've eagwigged the default position is to predict chaos. People are speaking of the city being "locked down". I'm not sure if that's a genuine concern or a misunderstanding about precisely which roads will be closed. There are generic "roads closed" warning signs all over the city. I suspect these are being read as "(This) Road (i)s (to be) closed". Call me a hedonist, but I'm looking forward to it.

When the Tour was first announced I had visions of it coming off the moors and majestically sweeping down Manchester Road, through Broomhill and on to a grand city centre finish. But, for this to have happened, it would either meant using the Snake Pass - and ceding too much of the day to Derbyshire - or travelling the length of the Strines Road.

Instead there's a more varied route that passes StuartB's mum's old house before heading on to Oughtibridge and the estates of northern Sheffield. Not only does this prolong the route through the city's streets but it also makes for a more egalitarian event than had the race been confined to the leafy western suburbs. The finish? Well, it's hardly the cobbled streets of the old city; more the harsh post-industrial landscape of the road to Tinsley. The saving grace is that the ugly, snarling A6178 should make for a belting sprint finish with the decisive move taking place somewhere between Toys Я Us and Sheffield Forgemasters.

The main feature of the final section is the climb of the rather unpretentious Jenkin Road which has a 1-in-3 gradient in places. Not quite Sheffield's Stentiford Hill but you get the drift.

A warm welcome, as ever, awaits at St Margaret's:



The area is not yet en fête but at least it's a case of "Allez Wincobank" as Jenkin Road starts to bite:



The summit of this category 4 climb:



Refreshments at St Thomas?



Or a "do" at the Wincobank Hotel? Yes, that road is on the route:



Prime viewing location halfway down the long descent of Newman Road:



And, at the bottom, it's a sharp right at the post office:



The strange thing about the final kilometre or so yesterday was hardly any sign of the race being but a few days away. Perhaps much of the paraphernalia is shipped in at the final moment having been used the previous day. The finish area was merely busy, noisy, unpleasing and hot. Maybe that's the appeal of the Tour; an extraordinary event which visits ordinary places.

And, of course, StuartB’s mum’s childhood home.

It might have made PMQ's yesterday, but so did Bristol Rovers plans to move to a new ground.

Of far more importance is the worrying fact that Felix has bravely highlighted :

'Always wanted to go to France to see Le Tour and now it's coming to me so I don't have to'.

Although a traditional warm British welcome for these visitors is in order, Felix's comment cleverly invites us to also reflect that sizeable quantities of the population of Africa ,Asia, and Europe also seem to be coming to us, and liking it so much they decide not to leave. At least with these cyclists we'll be entitled to say 'On yer bike' and send them back across the channel.


The way to go about it is to remember the cautious approach Devon took when being lumbered with 'The Tour' back in 1974:


'"We were treated like illegal immigrants," says former professional cyclist Barry Hoban, of the welcome the riders got from customs officials at Exeter Airport.

With all of them herded into a locked room, he claims he had to kick on the door to get let out.

LINK - Devon Leads The Way


Count them all in and count them all out would be my advice (smiley)


 

A few pictures from the Tour de France at Bradfield, near Sheffield; around twenty-six kilometres from the finish. Crowd scenes; spot the Tour cyclists if you're lucky. They came a few minutes late having been buffeted by the winds as they crossed the Pennines. I guess few of us knew the context and the events of the proceeding miles. But the split of the field into half-a-dozen groups spread across ten minutes told us what we needed to know.

I was there at eleven trampling down the bracken to make myself comfortable. The "caravan" appeared at around two and the crowd was prepared to cheer anything: white vans with French registration plates; the South Yorkshire police; even a City of Sheffield street-cleaning vehicle which threatened to put the kibosh on the whole affair by stalling. Then there were the advertising vehicles. French things like Bic pens and Hotel Ibis; good local products such as Yorkshire Tea and - all the way from Scarborough via Canada - McCain chips. It was all quite bizarre but marvellous at the same time.











As to the matter of football, this was a Wednesdayite stage of the Tour. Not many Blades on this patch save, perhaps, for a few Bic razors thrown from the publicity cavalcade:



Over the years the Tour has been disrupted by protests by French farmers and unions. Maybe, had it passed through Herefordshire, there would have been more than just this message on Kirk Edge Road: