The Tour de Yorkshire comes to the glorious Yorkshire Dales

Wow! What an exciting May Bank holiday weekend! The Tour de Yorkshire came through on Friday and Sunday. We were at the finish line in Bedale on Friday and then on Sunday watched them all going past in Masham.

Our son lives in Bedale, on the High Street, so we had front circle viewing of the event. What a noise and excitement when the caravan arrived from the caravan vehicles and the crowd. The grandchildren were beside themselves with all the goodies being handed out and of course came back with things that grandparents would prefer not to hear, but all part of the fun! Never having witnessed a finish didn’t realise just how exciting it could all be considering the riders had pedalled nearly 150 kilometres that day setting off in Barnsley and wending their way to Bedale taking in Harrogate and Ripon amongst many other towns and villages on the way.  They came with such speed up the high street it was breath taking! All over in a flash, you had to keep your eyes on happenings or you would have missed them. The noise from the crowd was quite overwhelming! The helicopter was overhead with people waving, the police out in full force marshalling and sounding their sirens.

We then slowly made our way up the High Street to watch the presentation of medals and jerseys to the winners, again so close, camera’s everywhere we even thought we might be on telly! But it would seem not. Joanne is a great fan of Mark Cavendish, who appeared for a while to sign autographs but alas we could get no nearer for all the people and Joanne had to make do with just a sighting!

Masham on Sunday, the race having started in Halifax going through Skipton, past Bolton Abbey and Kilnsey Craggs and up Park Rash in to Coverdale and then down in to Middleham, was slightly less noisy but only because we avoided the market place and decided to watch from a strategic corner on the way into the town. Again, they come past with such force, but well done to them all for such courage and energy expended. The final stage and finish line on Sunday was in Leeds with Chris Lawless becoming the first ever British winner of the Tour de Yorkshire that also saw Yorkshireman Scott Thwaites return to his usual form with an 8th place finish; Yorkshire’s highest placed rider since the race’s inception. An incredible overall roadside attendance to just under two million over the four days of action. WOW!

We look forward to next time!