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Tour of Britain ? NO WAY!
This so called tour of Britain is just a glorified tour of England, it will not be a real tour of Britain until the race finishes in Cardiff or Edinburgh. It is a total joke the race can't get any further north than Edinburgh,don't the organisers know Scotland has the best road biking roads in BRITAIN. 
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23 comments
Still waiting for the tribute to Percy Stallard stage on the TOB. Run it in reverse from Wolverhampton to Llangollen but finish on top of the Horse Shoe Pass (the original distance was 59 miles), So you could go the long way to up the mileage. North Wales features often in the TOB as we have the scenery and most places are about 1 hour from Liverpool – Manchester and 2 hours ish from most of the Midlands. At the finish in Wrexham we had some who had cycled from the Wirral and Warrington Liverpool ect to see the finish!
I quite like the fact that stages move around from year to year.
Would love to see the TOB go into the Highlands - and into Cornwall too for that matter.
However both Highlands & Cornwall have the same problem: To fit it into a route without silly transfers, you would have to start the race there, but the terrain is so challenging, you would effectively decide the GC on stage 1...
Uch...paint yer face blue Braveheart.
The ToB will never visit north and west of the Central Belt for very sound reasons;
Traffic management - vast swathes of the Highlands are only served by one road. Close that road down and there is no alternative for 40 or 50 miles.
Fans - can you imagine how many fans you would get on a wet Tuesday on a remote hillside 100 miles away from the nearest city? The sponsors want to see roadside footfall, not majestic emptiness.
Logistics - the ToB is a huge cavalcade, how would you accommodate all those people in remote areas?
Long Transfers - not fair on the riders and already hugely unpopular with them.
As for finishing it in Cardiff and Edinburgh, not sure why you have a bee in your bonnet about this. The TdF doesn't finish in Lyon, Marseille etc. Doesn't make it any less a French race.
You just don't get it tour de France finishes in Paris, tour of Britain should finish around Britain, if it was a tour of England brilliant it could finish in your capital no problems,it has become boring in London anyhow. Inverness, Aberdeen or even Perth could easily host a stage.p.s.( our faces are already painted,we've got our kilts on we're eating porridge and there is heather coming out our ears)
You know the capital of Britain is London... even Wikipedia says so, so it must be true
So if you're talking about Britain, it's your capital too; you could call it 'our' capital.
First of all your English is appalling, it's genuinely hard to understand what you are trying to say.
Secondly a simple click on my profile would have shown that I'm typing this in Glasgow.
Thirdly you don't seem to accept that there are huge logistical problems in holding a stage (or stages) north of the Central Belt. Perth is one thing but Aberdeen or Inverness?
Hellllooo, Mcflyyy?!?
A stage in Inverness would mean relatively fan free roads (not popular with the sponsors) and it would also mean either several stages making their way up to the North of Scotland (and all the traffic management problems that would come with that) or a long transfer by road. Is it fair to subject riders to 4 or 5 hours in a team bus, get them to ride 4 hours then back on the team bus for another 4 or 5 hours?
The first and last stages also need to consider travel for the race entourage and the teams. Finishing miles away from transport links to Europe will add to the costs and put teams off travelling for what is only ever going to be a relatively small race in the calendar.
Quite frankly, despite the excellent ToB this year it is The Tour de Yorkshire that takes top spot in the GB cycling calendar. As everyone in the civilized world knows Yorkshire is God's own county and does this sport best with the best scenery with the best spectator turn out. So let's just focus on this instead of all the other second rate events !
take your own water though if you go.
Why? ? ?
Yorkshire is one of the few places where the water is lovely and soft, no heavy calcium there
That explains why it's 3 quid a glass! ; (
When The North of England (including Yorkshire) splits and goes with independent Scotland we are going to charge you lot "down south" a lot more than than £3 for a glass of water !
It'll all come down to which towns and cities are prepared to pay how much for the race to start in, finish in or pass through them. If you want the race to finish in Cardiff, or spend 4 days in the Highlands, you need to get the local councils, tourism boards, etc to pay for it to do that.
And what about Belfast???? Or Northern Ireland in general! We are part of Britain but have never seen a stage!!!
No, NI is not part of Britain. Hence the full name of the country being The United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland.
I feel the need to out-pedant you. "Britain" commonly refers either to the UK, or to Great Britain, the largest island in the British Isles (which include the island of Ireland), but it doesn't precisely mean either of those. This ambiguity means that "Tour of Britain" can quite easily validly include Northern Ireland if you use the Britain~=UK interpretation.
If it was "Tour of Great Britain", then that would certainly exclude NI. But as it just uses the ambiguous term 'Britain', then why not use the wider interpretation and have a stage or two in NI every so often.
Besides, Yorkshire isn't generally regarded as being in France, and that hasn't stopped them hosting the Grand Depart.
I naturally await correction by someone more pedentic than and/or with better grammar than myself
Its only 8 stages so people are right it cant go everywhere, but i'm also in agreement that a different finish is not unreasonable to ask as the usual borefest of cycling around london is becoming just that, a bore to watch.
Some people always want more.
I don't see why finishing in either capital makes it more a Tour of Britain than it already is? Just because it doesn't go past your front door doesn't mean it's less a Tour of Britain, either.
What makes "the best road biking roads in Britain" is also up for debate.
It's a relatively short race and it can only visit a few places each year and, as already said, it needs to satisfy the sponsors so it goes where the people are.
Didn't do much in the south this year either, other than the central London finish. I guess there's actually a limit to how far you can get them to cycle in the time available. Maybe get them to do LEJOG next year whilst they are at it.
Quite enjoyed the TV coverage.
There are other logistical concerns as well as financial ones. Sponsorship makes pro cycling, not pictures on shortbread tins.
The point of a Tour is to get people to watch it, which means going where the crowds are.
Not sure that professional bike riders really care that much about the scenery.
Hi, just like to say cycling fans travel to watch the racing, do you think that hundreds of thousands of people live up mount Ventoux etc, and stroll out their front doors and there it is bike racing . I have travelled to bike racing in France and Britain and if the roads are good the people come. Bike racers may not care about the scenery but bike racing on TV is also about selling the locations to tourists.