Tour of Britain 2023 (September 3-10)

[TourOfSardinia]

So Pidcock has DNSd ?

Still there?

 

[Tim Cahill]

Who is it?

 

[Strawberry_Jams]

Still there

you ok?

 

[Tim Cahill]

Great racing now, Turner looks back to his early-season best after an absurd run of bad luck.

 

[search]

good racing indeed, but now it seems to be time for ITV's daily 10 minute ad break within the final 20k

 

[Tim Cahill]

Quite like how Serrano seems to have peaked to defend his Tour of Britain title after not doing much the rest of the season.

 

[Strawberry_Jams]

stevie bloody williams. saving the race.

 

[Tim Cahill]

Sheffield needs to go over the top once the gap is bridgeable

 

[Strawberry_Jams]

oh.

 

[awavey]

Why does the distance to the finish always disappear in the last km ?

UnoX with a win

 

[Didinho]

Tiller wins!

 

[Unchained]

Last finishes I have seen narrow, dangerous and little traffic circles w traffic furniture and courses are full of vehicles..

 

[awavey]

Last finishes I have seen narrow, dangerous and little traffic circles w traffic furniture and courses are full of vehicles..

That's just the UK

 

[Unchained]

That's just the UK

I know that race organizers usually use cities as automatic crowd placement I get it built in audience. Just think that the sprints should be put in illogical open spaces.. the other day when the bad crash happened to Woots right the race came through an industrial park with roads wide enough for the race plus tractor trailers parked all over.. I loved riding in Somerset and Dover..but trust me all of Mexico is bike unfriendly and 99% of the US is anti bike.. I am just complaining!!! UK better than most

 

[Libertine Seguros]

I know that race organizers usually use cities as automatic crowd placement I get it built in audience. Just think that the sprints should be put in illogical open spaces.. the other day when the bad crash happened to Woots right the race came through an industrial park with roads wide enough for the race plus tractor trailers parked all over.. I loved riding in Somerset and Dover..but trust me all of Mexico is bike unfriendly and 99% of the US is anti bike.. I am just complaining!!! UK better than most

Again this goes back to the thing awavey had discussed on the Women's Tour when we discussed it last year. They had a stupendously stupid finish in Bury St Edmunds on stage one, with a double chicane and a narrowing road followed by a downhill run-in to the line, and it was an absolute comedy of errors with barriers being pulled too narrow, crashes, and all manner of things that went wrong in the sprint. Somebody else pointed out an alternative finish that would have ended at the same square but from a different direction with a much safer run-in, a longer straight and less road furniture. But that would have meant they finished running along the side of, rather than in front of, the old town monuments. The photos of the sprint would show houses and walls, not the listed buildings and architectural monuments that they wanted in shot.

That's not a British problem, that's an everywhere problem. But in a lot of other places with more history or tradition of hosting pro bike races, the race organisers have a bit more leverage to get a more reasonable finish, or hosts are more keen to get a decisive stage that will get good TV viewing rather than just wanting a sprint for the local crowd to enjoy for the five or so seconds that they can see those riders that haven't just been wiped out in a crash. Especially at the moment with the lack of title sponsors, the organisers have pretty much zero leverage against the demands of the host towns, no matter how detrimental they may be to providing either an entertaining or a safe bike race.

 

[samhocking]

The

The wider point is that the British authorities have never been supportive of bicycle racing - going back to the origins of the sport in the 19th century. Hence the historical popularity of time trialling in the UK, because it was a form of racing which could be done 'under the radar'.

People on here who bleat on about the parcours/course/route/way/navigation have no idea how many factors limit the choice. Perhaps they should try organising a bike race in the UK!

The organisers of the ToB (Sweetspot if you're interested) have done wonders to produce a week-long stage race every year for a couple of decades in the face of this. Sadly I strongly suspect this edition will be the last. Let's hope it goes out with a bang at Caerphilly which is sure to be an exciting and scenic finale

Was listening to a podcast explaining the costs for TofB are just so astronomical that the finish towns this year were chosen based on the local authorities / councils with any money left and those were the the only towns who could afford the race. But I generally agree, because Road Racing was outlawed by Queen Victoria iirc (why UK has such strong TT & Track culture) the stage racing culture kind of began long after other countries and so the local authority and policing system didn't grow with the sport and so it's always been comparitively challenging to host a road race even at amateur level due to costs. With Torie government squeezing every last penny out of everything at the moment, I think it will probably be one of the last or even the last TofB for a while.

 

[Wyndbrook]

Well I had a great day out today, managed to see the start and three times on my local roads.

 

[awavey]

Was listening to a podcast explaining the costs for TofB are just so astronomical that the finish towns this year were chosen based on the local authorities / councils with any money left and those were the the only towns who could afford the race. But I generally agree, because Road Racing was outlawed by Queen Victoria iirc (why UK has such strong TT & Track culture) the stage racing culture kind of began long after other countries and so the local authority and policing system didn't grow with the sport and so it's always been comparitively challenging to host a road race even at amateur level due to costs. With Torie government squeezing every last penny out of everything at the moment, I think it will probably be one of the last or even the last TofB for a while.

That funding model hasn't just been this year, it's been like that for a while its just the podcasters hadn't noticed till now thats what was happening, fwiw Stage 5 was wholly funded by Torie (sic) led councils so this isn't anything to do with government.

 

[awavey]

I know that race organizers usually use cities as automatic crowd placement I get it built in audience. Just think that the sprints should be put in illogical open spaces.. the other day when the bad crash happened to Woots right the race came through an industrial park with roads wide enough for the race plus tractor trailers parked all over.. I loved riding in Somerset and Dover..but trust me all of Mexico is bike unfriendly and 99% of the US is anti bike.. I am just complaining!!! UK better than most

I don't know enough about the area for why they picked that finish specifically to know why they chose that, and tbf we had that crazy industrial estate finish near the airport with the tram tracks crossing & roundabouts in the womens world tour this year, that literally you could have spent 2mins on Google maps routing a safer route to the finish almost along the same road, so it's not just the British races that muck this stuff up sometimes

 

[Rob5091]

https://cyclinguptodate.com/cycling...n-stage-other-teams-did-not-want-to-help-them
"Jumbo had to do something because the other teams did not want to help."

I wonder why?!

 

[samhocking]

That funding model hasn't just been this year, it's been like that for a while its just the podcasters hadn't noticed till now thats what was happening, fwiw Stage 5 was wholly funded by Torie (sic) led councils so this isn't anything to do with government.

Of course, but when a Country is financially on its knees, things like bike races are the first to not be affordable or shortfalls possible to fill with sponsors and host towns. Can you imagine if La Vuelta would survive if 3 weeks of police costs were nearing £2 Million like would be the case in UK for a 3 week race? This is the big difference, the police force isn't setup to help run bike races as part of general taxation, anything like that is stripped back by governments to save costs / not be the government increasing taxes to keep them going. Sweetspot said the host towns are what they are because they were the only towns who's authorities could afford it everone else rejected the race as they have no money to cover sport anymore.

 

[GenericBoonenFan]

https://cyclinguptodate.com/cycling...n-stage-other-teams-did-not-want-to-help-them
"Jumbo had to do something because the other teams did not want to help."

I wonder why?!

 

[theyoungest]

I don't think you actually read the article, because it was not a Jumbo rider who said this...

 

[Izzyeviel]

Currently the hottest day of the year so far, & it hasn't rained for the past ten days. Except this morning between 7-10am when I was on the bike. Very hot & humid.

 

[RedheadDane]

Currently the hottest day of the year so far, & it hasn't rained for the past ten days. Except this morning between 7-10am when I was on the bike. Very hot & humid.

Now it is.