Recent Tours of Britain have been hilly and have finished in London but this year’s race is different. It will miss London for only the second time since its relaunch in 2004 but the Scottish and Welsh capitals benefit with Edinburgh hosting the start of the eight-day race on 3 September, and Cardiff is the finish venue.
Apart from Olympic year in 2012, London has always hosted the start or finish of the British Tour but in June London will host the final stage of the five-day Women’s Tour.
“London will have the Women’s Tour this year, because the women need parity,” said the race director, Mick Bennett. With the centre of the capital also closed for a weekend at the end of July to host RideLondon, there is clearly an unspoken view there is only so much disruption bike racing should bring to London.
The major innovation on the men’s tour, won last year by Steve Cummings, will please spectators and finish towns. Four of the eight stage-finishes will be on circuits where the riders will pass through the finish line at least once before covering a loop back to the chequered flag.
Stage one in Kelso includes a 70km circuit around the Border town, while the stage two and three finishes in Blyth and Scunthorpe have smaller loops, and the finale in Cardiff includes several laps of a 6km circuit taking in the castle, the Arms Park, and the docks.
After hilly recent editions including the Lake District, south Wales, Devon and the Staffordshire moors, there is a much flatter look than usual to the race, based largely in the east, with stages through Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Suffolk hardly offset by a long slog through the Cotswolds to Cheltenham on stage seven.
The key day should be stage five’s 10-mile time trial in Essex, the home of the national time-trial champion, Alex Dowsett. It will be only the second time the British Tour has featured a solo stage of this length and it is likely to dictate the tour as a similar leg did in 2013, when Sir Bradley Wiggins ran out the victor.
“We are expecting the fastest and most aggressive Tour of Britain on record,” said Bennett, adding that this will be a race for time-triallists and sprinters. It will probably lack the unbridled racing that, for example, made the Lake District stage so memorable in 2016 but it is a sign of confidence that the organisers feel able to change a winning formula, if only temporarily.
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