Tour of Britain? Yeah Right!

[VeloEcosse]

Can someone explain to me why we have a "Tour of Britain" that does not take in Scotland or Norther Ireland? I know for a fact that most Scottish towns would love a stage of the race and would pay for the privilege as they do in TdF.

Some of the best cycling routes around the UK are in Scotland & Northern Ireland. Not trying to be too provincial but I hate a marketeers idea of what a Tour should be.

Answers/comments/defenses etc...on a postcard please.

 

[rolfrae]

I did think the same thing when I saw that the ToB wasn't going to make it north of the border this year.

On an aside, I'd love to see Scotland or a Scottish city (preferably Edinburgh) bid for the Tour's grand depart.

 

[VeloEcosse]

I did think the same thing when I saw that the ToB wasn't going to make it north of the border this year.

On an aside, I'd love to see Scotland or a Scottish city (preferably Edinburgh) bid for the Tour's grand depart.

Rumour has it that this may well happen in 2015. Not sure if it would be Edinburgh or Glasgow but would make for an interesting prologue. Average cost for the TdF prologue for a city is around €300,000.

 

[Ryo Hazuki]

Rumour has it that this may well happen in 2015. Not sure if it would be Edinburgh or Glasgow but would make for an interesting prologue. Average cost for the TdF prologue for a city is around €300,000.

actually 4 million I think. that's what it cost Rotterdam I believe.

 

[VeloEcosse]

actually 4 million I think. that's what it cost Rotterdam I believe.

Wow...I was way off the mark. I was sure I read somewhere they charged €300,000. Oh well you live and learn. Not sure the Scots would stump up €4 million crackers.

 

[theswordsman]

My former British Studies professors would cringe if I didn't point out that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, but wasn't (and isn't) part of Great Britain. And the race title doesn't even include "Great".

The cycling fan part of me would love to see Scotland, especially the Highlands, on TV.

 

[rxgqgxnyfz]

They should totally do a stage in Falklands and another at Gibraltar.
________
WENDIE 99

 

[Roland Rat]

It'd be great to see a proper 14-day ToB. Prologue followed by a couple of flat stages, then across the pennines and up to Scotland for a few hills. Then a couple of flat stages in the Midlands heading to Wales, and finally a few lumpy/flat stages back to the finish in London. Then it would also be a proper race rather than the sprinter roadshow.




As for new races - a Tour of the Commonwealth would be fun! Would put the Giro's pathetically small USA-Italy transfer to shame.

 

[goggalor]

They should totally do a stage in Falklands and another at Gibraltar.

JJ Haedo FTW on the Falklands stage.

 

[benpounder]

Wow...I was way off the mark. I was sure I read somewhere they charged €300,000. Oh well you live and learn. Not sure the Scots would stump up €4 million crackers.

I think ASO understands that different situations warrant different fees. Any first stage, or prologue, of a GT is worth much more than an average start/finish of most other stages. Unlike other stages, prologues see the teams in one location for more that one morning or evening, and for some teams, up to a week (think final team workups, team presentations, press conferences, vendor roll-outs etc). Depending on the finish/start, I would think hosting a rest day also costs more than your average stage (think Pau or Morzine this year). And most stages start in different towns than they finished the evening before.

In other words I think you both may be right.

In regards to the OP's comment, perhaps they ought to change their name to the Tour of England.

 

[JayZee]

Can someone explain to me why we have a "Tour of Britain" that does not take in Scotland or Norther Ireland? I know for a fact that most Scottish towns would love a stage of the race and would pay for the privilege as they do in TdF.

Some of the best cycling routes around the UK are in Scotland & Northern Ireland. Not trying to be too provincial but I hate a marketeers idea of what a Tour should be.

Answers/comments/defenses etc...on a postcard please.

Can someone explain to me why we have a Tour de France that starts in some other country besides France? Oh yeah, money.

Seriously though, a true Tour of Britain would be sweet. Scotland has some wonderful terrain for a bike race. How cool would be stage that went through Fort William and up to Inverness. Don't know about N. Ireland, never been there.

 

[jobiwan]

Can someone explain to me why we have a Tour de France that starts in some other country besides France? Oh yeah, money.

Seriously though, a true Tour of Britain would be sweet. Scotland has some wonderful terrain for a bike race. How cool would be stage that went through Fort William and up to Inverness. Don't know about N. Ireland, never been there.

As for you first thought, I like when it starts outside of France. Monaco '09 was fun to watch. Rotterdam '10 was cool, and London '07 worked really well. I like the rotation. I think one year they should have a prologue in Paris, just my opinion.

 

[Mellow Velo]

Can someone explain to me why we have a "Tour of Britain" that does not take in Scotland or Norther Ireland? I know for a fact that most Scottish towns would love a stage of the race and would pay for the privilege as they do in TdF.

Some of the best cycling routes around the UK are in Scotland & Northern Ireland. Not trying to be too provincial but I hate a marketeers idea of what a Tour should be.

Answers/comments/defenses etc...on a postcard please.

Some of the best cycling parcour, according to David Duffield, is in Wales.
A pity you left the principality out of your "observation".
Question: Wales hosts one stage this year, when did it last merit a visit?

IMO: The T of B is actually The T of E with a guest country getting the odd
opportunity to host.

 

[El Pistolero]

They should use those boat thingies with bikes on and let them race from North Ireland to Schotland.

Now that would be worth seeing even though it would have nothing to do with professional cycling.

On a more serious note. They should do a prologue in Northen Ireland. Then they should pass through Schotland, England, Wales and back to England(London)

They should also change it into a 2 weeks stage race. I always wondered why there are so many 1 week stage races, but no( or almost no) 2 week stage races.

One quick question: Does Schotland have mountains?(don't laugh, never been to the British isles)

 

[Fattourist]

Can someone explain to me why we have a "Tour of Britain" that does not take in Scotland

It did last year. There's a video (not mine) of it going through Dumfries-shire here:

http://vimeo.com/6576453

More here:

http://www.tourofbritain.co.uk/_ns_history/history_2009.asp

 

[Libertine Seguros]

The main problem with sending the Tour of Britain to being a REAL Tour of Britain is that a) most of the most interesting terrain is rather isolated, and the lack of knowledge of cycling in Britain means that few will trek to these isolated locations to see the few top level pros that show up, b) the way the race is funded means it's often loops or finishes quite close to one another funded by a county or city, meaning the transfers are already hideously long, and c) the rather engineered London crit finish (why not a circuit on the end of a trip in?) means you only really have seven stages to cover the whole of Britain, meaning in any given year lots of areas will get left out - especially given the tendency to use a few of the same areas (Blackpool, Stoke, Dartmoor) every year.

If you look at the route of races like the Tour of Poland, the Deutschlandtour and the Volta a Portugal, you'll notice that huge swathes of the country go ignored; it's just a general fact of dealing with short Tours around large countries; Portugal even has 11 days to go around a country far smaller than those with the Grand Tours, and is only covering half of itself this year. If England, Scotland and Wales were not separate entities, it wouldn't be so much of an issue, but the strong regional pride and national identity of the Scots and Welsh means that their absence from the race is noticed a lot more. I'm not saying that you don't have a right to complain (you do), but it's more clear than if, say, a citizen of Niedersachsen complains at the Deutschlandtour always missing their Land, or a citizen of Pomorskie complaining that their territory is always missed out from the Tour of Poland. This is the first time the East of England has hosted the Tour of Britain, but that's not so big a deal as it's only a region, not an actual country, so it's less a snub and more an omission.

It's also the case that a lot of the best terrain that could be used for a more challenging Tour of Britain is in Scotland and Wales, which makes it all the more easy to resent the Anglocentric approach.

However, another part of that is that there is precious little difficult racing in the national calendar. The biggest events are city centre crits and short course races. The Tour of Britain is eight stages, mostly flat. The national riders are geared up for flat races, and an eight day race taking in the sawtoothed terrain of a proper, good profile in Scotland, in parts of Wales and in the Lake District might be too much for them. There are precious few other stage races. A proper Tour of Scotland or Tour of Wales would be absolutely ideal - killing two birds with one stone in that it would give the riders experience of trickier stage racing, and allow the better terrain to be used. And then, with experience of setting races up in those areas they could make better cases to the ToB organisers.

 

[ScotsBiker]

I saw the Tour of Britain/Kellogs/Pru Tour in Dundee and Stirling. One year they went up the Loch Lomond road past Luss.

It has been done before so can happen again.

Maybe a 5 day Tour de Ecosse ?

Event Scotland/SNP would certainly help.

 

[Reverend_T_Preedy]

Can someone explain to me why we have a "Tour of Britain" that does not take in Scotland or Norther Ireland? I know for a fact that most Scottish towns would love a stage of the race and would pay for the privilege as they do in TdF.

Obviously they don't though. The TOB is funded by councils paying to host the race so if no council is willing to pay then they won't go there. Your gripw should be with the local authorities and not the organisers really.

I am sure the organisers would love to have the race in Edinburgh, Glasgow and the Highlands but the way it is funded at the moment means that won't happen unless the authorities stump up the cash.

Dumfries and Galloway have had stages for the last few years up until this year. This year is the first time in a long time they have ventured into Wales.

I must admit, the organisers need to look at other funding options because with the fascists we have in power a the moment it will be very hard to get any money from local authorities in the future.

 

[Andy99]

Obviously they don't though. The TOB is funded by councils paying to host the race so if no council is willing to pay then they won't go there. Your gripw should be with the local authorities and not the organisers really.

I am sure the organisers would love to have the race in Edinburgh, Glasgow and the Highlands but the way it is funded at the moment means that won't happen unless the authorities stump up the cash.

Dumfries and Galloway have had stages for the last few years up until this year. This year is the first time in a long time they have ventured into Wales.

I must admit, the organisers need to look at other funding options because with the fascists we have in power a the moment it will be very hard to get any money from local authorities in the future.

Exactly right. The organisers moved away from one a single commercial entity as the main funding source. Sponsors pulling out (such as prudential with the prutour) was the reason the tour ceased to exist for a time.

The race is pretty much now totally funded by each particular region that hosts the race.

Obviously the Scots councils/development agencies have shown little interest. Not sure why, it's not exactly that they are short of cash - as long as the Barnett formula still exists!

 

[gingerwallaceafro]

As most local councils in Scotland are like fiefdoms with no shortage of money, perhaps they should take a long hard look at themselves and ask themselves why they don't invest in their local areas, promoting tourism and shining a light on their natural assets...

Maybe it's because they see the future elsewhere, perhaps in shipbuilding, fishing and mining or something.... Perhaps they could take the tack of prescribing cycling as a utilitarian aid to health thus enabling one to help one's fellow comrade achieve a utopian vision through exercise in a totally non capitalist way.... Might work?

Politics aside, Scotland and Wales should be the bones of the Tour of Britain, not to downplay Northern Ireland either which has plenty of interesting, hilly riding.

 

[Fester]

Britain is a stunningly beautiful place when you get away from the big cities that seem to take up half the country. The have some good mountains, enough to split a race anyway.

I had the idea, probably completely unfeasible or viable of a "Northern Tour". With some rainy weather, some cobbles, some hills and some wind. My idea was a "North Sea Tour" passing through England, Scotland, the Hebrides and Shetlands, then across to Norway for some killer climbs, down through Sweden, Denmark, ending in of the Benelux capitals or London. Something different from the current, more "Mediterranean" Tour, and to see another type of cyclist win in another type of terrain.

 

[gingerwallaceafro]

Britain is a stunningly beautiful place when you get away from the big cities that seem to take up half the country. The have some good mountains, enough to split a race anyway.

I had the idea, probably completely unfeasible or viable of a "Northern Tour". With some rainy weather, some cobbles, some hills and some wind. My idea was a "North Sea Tour" passing through England, Scotland, the Hebrides and Shetlands, then across to Norway for some killer climbs, down through Sweden, Denmark, ending in of the Benelux capitals or London. Something different from the current, more "Mediterranean" Tour, and to see another type of cyclist win in another type of terrain.

Sounds great to me! Maybe a bit too much ground to cover in 3 weeks let alone one! Riding the coast of Norway would be a greater distance than going from London to Milan..

 

[El Pistolero]

Britain is a stunningly beautiful place when you get away from the big cities that seem to take up half the country. The have some good mountains, enough to split a race anyway.

I had the idea, probably completely unfeasible or viable of a "Northern Tour". With some rainy weather, some cobbles, some hills and some wind. My idea was a "North Sea Tour" passing through England, Scotland, the Hebrides and Shetlands, then across to Norway for some killer climbs, down through Sweden, Denmark, ending in of the Benelux capitals or London. Something different from the current, more "Mediterranean" Tour, and to see another type of cyclist win in another type of terrain.

And Northern France for some sections of Paris-Roubaix.

Or perhaps a classics cycling stage race of one week containing cobbled sections of Paris-Roubaix and the Ronde van Vlaanderen. Also containing some sections/hills of Luik-Bastenaken-Luik and if it's possible to stretch all the way to Italy to include some sections of Milan-Sanremo and the Giro di Lombardia. Would be totally epic.

 

[liamclarke4]

the reason they dont go to these areas is as most things are its political. the soon to be defunct quangos which are the regional development agencies bid for the stages to promote there area

 

[Big_Blue_Dave]

Reverend T Preedy is spot on. The race organisers charge for the host area eg. North West (so the NWDA) to hold the stage, who then decide where it will go from and to, Rochdale to Blackpool, both of whom (local councils) have to pay to host the start and/or finish. This tends to be done with quite a large number of officials sitting at the meeting deciding who will pay how much and for what, then highest bidder basically wins.

Just as an example the Halfords Tour Series costs a town/city about £60k to host the race, hence why you tend to see the towns and cities not necessarily be the biggest ones, but those who want to promote their towns the most, plus with cycling being on ITV4, not as yet a mainstream channel, the cost is still considered to be too much for most local councils. For the Tour of Britain, I believe the cost is close to £85k for the stage start and £125k for the stage finish. This pays for the infrastructure, staffing cost, and paying teams to race, bring big names and the prize money. This is boosted by the sponsors revenue from the likes of E.on.