SO the Tour de France could become the Tour de Yorkshire. And if this city’s cycling champion has his way, the race would begin outside of York Minster – or, to quote Coun Andy D’Agorne – the ‘iconic’ York Minster.
This adjective seems to be over-used nowadays. Isn’t the Minster just too darn big and beautiful to be so described? Still, perhaps the thought of knowing that their handiwork would one day be called iconic was what kept the original stonemasons chipping away.
Anyway, the Tour de France, the world’s most famous cycle race, begins outside of France every two years, so this grand idea is not as bonkers as it might at first seem. However, rumours that the Paris to Dakar race is due to divert to Tang Hall can be safely ignored because I just made them up.
This temporary new location for the world’s greatest cycle race is a fine notion. York rather than Leeds? At the risk of descending to parochialism, that is usually the better way round. And if the Grand Départ were to come to this county, as the tourism body Welcome To Yorkshire hopes, then York might be a sounder start than Leeds for a number of reasons.
Marginally more chance of the riders hanging on to their wheels, for a start.
Now you could write what I know about the Tour de France on a yellow jersey, and still have room for a chapter. But I do know about cycling round this city of ours. So here are a few helpful suggestions.
Instead of sweeping in majestically and then disappearing in a spoke-spun haze, the elite cyclists should encounter some of the hazards the rest of us have to endure.
For a start, they could be directed up Micklegate to enjoy the bone-vibrating cobblestones. And, for a particular challenge, they could do so on a race day, when cyclists have to weave in between Knavesmire fugitives tippling down this street. Like a colleague at work, they could even suffer the indignity of having a suited drunk climb on the back of their bike.
Then the riders could be made to face the Big Purple Moving Canyon, a fiendish obstacle otherwise known as the buses that eat bikes. Get anywhere too close to one of those double-jointed ftr monsters and the elite riders could find themselves thoroughly squashed, or at the very least relocated to the pavement.
Other local delights could include a sprint down the Clifton cycle lane, fast becoming the most controversial such lane in the history of boring things that people like to go on about.
Yes, it’s a nuisance to drivers (I too have suffered those queues when car-bound), but pretty nifty for cyclists, who do use it, never mind what the complainers say.
A diversion to Huntington could introduce the riders to the Man Who Hates Bicycles; while a trip down Holgate way could take in the Man Who Loves Bicycles (these occasionally quarrelsome characters have been diametrically opposed in our letters page for what seems like centuries, but probably isn’t).
And while en route, they could take in the disappearing cycle lanes in Blossom Street, the ones that only exist when no cars are around. Once the traffic arrives, they become no more than a dubious theoretical concept.
And never mind the cars and vans that shoot by a spoke’s width away, or blow their horns when they cannot get past immediately; or the taxis that swerve by in an impatient rush.
After that lot, all those mountainous climbs in France should be a push-over.
• IT WAS a headline to put fear into those of us converted to eating salads at the suggestion of their wives: “Death toll rises from poison cucumbers.”
Cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce from Spain are being blamed for a deadly outbreak of food poisoning said to be sweeping Europe.
So what is still safe to eat? If salad can kill us, I now have the perfect excuse to once again go heavy on the sandwiches. So long as the cucumber stays in the fridge.
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