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Tour de France Commentator Phil Liggett reveals the 2014 Tour de France route YouTubeVideo: Phil Liggett reveals route of 2014 Tour de France grand depart in UK
The Tour de France starts with two stages in Yorkshire next year, before hopping south to Cambridge to start stage three’s run into London.
In this video from the Ordnance Survey, Phil ‘the Voice of Cycling’ Ligget talks us through the route, the challenges the riders will face and the types of riders likely to win.
Stage one from Leeds to Harrogate via the Dales will be one for the sprinters, according to Liggett, while the hills of the second stage from York to Sheffield will favour climbers.
The dash into London will be one for the opportunists, with the chance of a breakaway, though it’s hard to see Mark Cavendish’s team allowing that when their man will want to to win in front of Buckingham Palace.
Tour director Christian Prudhomme says it will be the second hardest grand depart in the history of the Tour.
Take a look at the video and see if you agree with Prudomme and Liggett's thoughts:
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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19 comments
It's not the first time the "pro's" have been up the Moss.
Have been up there for a few of the races going over. most notably for me was hold the flag for the top of the climb, Sean Kelly sprinting towards it. Awesome.
last week going up Holme Moss all i could think of was shit me the pro's are doing this next year. cant wait to see their times and watch them go up in the big chain ring
It's the 'droning on' that's getting to me too.
Ok. Some people don't like Liggert. Think he's: over the hill/ a crook / boring. We get it. Can we move on? Or maybe get a wristband saying 'We hate Liggert' on it?
Moving on....I hope it's sunny next year as Sheffield and Leeds from the air aren't pretty.
I can hear Liggert next year 'You're looking at the NCP carpark created in 1965 - capacity 2,000 vehicles. Sheffield was never visited by Charlemagne in his lifetime..''
Climbed Holme Moss on a recent sportive and I can't wait to see the pro's tackle it next year, in probably a fraction of the time it took me to get my sorry arse up there. Enjoyed the fast descent too, didn't quite make 60mph however.
so yorkshires flat? my legs disagree
I still can't quite get my head round the Tour de France is going up Holme Moss. The Tour de France!
Tinny pseudo-dubstep soundtrack can f-off though.
Agree with Decster and Rumpo. Both Liggett and Sherwen were and may well still be financially in cahoots with Armstrong. I gave up my Eurosport subscription last year after becoming disillusioned with cycling and only occasionally now turn on the ITV4 coverage to find that the Hinge and Bracket of cycle commentating are still droning on.
I see they still haven't formulated stage three yet.
On another subject, I suspect most of the Liggert bashers once wore a yellow wristband such is their venom. I can say ( smugly ) that I never had a yellow band and looking back over Liggert's very fine career - running the milk race for while was one highlight - he's allowed to make a mistake or two. I'll take misguided loyalty over sneering (with perhaps a touch of frustrated envy?) any day.
(And here we go again) Read a transcript of Liggett's interview on Ballz radio. Misguided loyalty is one thing, Lying through his teeth is another.
Either the title of this article is misleading or has been truncated. Surely it should be:
"Phil Liggett reveals route of 2014 Tour de France grand depart in UK is all a conspiracy because some unnamed person he spoke to last week told him so"
google tour de france yorkshire route and...
http://letour.yorkshire.com/the-route
granted its a bit hazy in the city centres but the rest is legible.
DOes anyone know where you can find the EXACT route they will take? I live in Leeds and am keen to learn the route they will take out of the city centre and away...
Ta!
A somewhat surreal juxtaposition of Phil Liggett's dulcet tones and a pumping dubstep soundtrack.
Agree with Lengus1 about the route - do your research on the map and good old streetview. There are some great lanes but the main roads are not that cycle friendly. Once the race has passed I expect the main roads will be pretty chaotic.
It really worries me when in all promotional materials they encourage amateurs to follow the exact routes of the Tour. Some of the roads, like A59 between York and Harrogate, or A61 between Ripon and Harrogate, amongst others, are very busy but narrow main roads, filled with lorries. There are safer, nicer and more picturesque alternatives if you know the area, but many riders new to Yorkshire, might blindly follow the route. Pros have closed roads, we have to share. So please, if you're planning to come and ride in the area, study the map and perhaps avoid the busiest roads. All the pretty and exciting fragments are on the quiet bits of day 1 anyway. (I can't speak of South Yorkshire as I'm yet not very familiar with the area).
I hadn't seen the promotional material yet, that is a shame they didn't show safer routes in them as well. Capital Cycles
Ligget took the yellow shilling for too long and therefore should be banned.
He has long since had any relevance to the sport except to big up the biggest cheat in the history of sport.
I had the firm impression that the texan and his 'lieutenants'/'machine' have been firmly deleted from history. It's a shame as they did such a 'job of work' together.
Having said that the other day he mumbled something about Stuey O'Grady doing more tours than anyone else, now that 'Big' George's results were....ahem....erased.
The still from the top YouTube vid is wrong. That's clearly an advert for a care home ot meals on wheels, right?
has he mentioned 'the texan' much so far this tour? I only caught one mention so far but I'm more a Eurosport kind of guy
If he couldn't figure that Lance was doping I doubt he knows where Yorkshire is.