CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
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SCOTLAND is about to mount an audacious bid to host a stage of the world-famous Tour de France cycle race for the first time.
Either Glasgow or Edinburgh would be the home venue for the pre-race time trial and the start of the first phase of the Tour following three years of talks with organisers. The race route may link the two cities or head as far north as the Trossachs
"
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/scotland/Scotland-to-bid-for-Tour.6684351.jp
Just noticed -
This is topic 2000!!
This would be great.
In the year 2017 at the earliest but that would be a great thing to happen.
That would be fantastic (as long as the Grand Depart is in Edinburgh rather than Glasgow ;) ).
The thing that'll need to be overcome is how to get the TdF entourage back to France overnight. Long transfers aren't popular with the riders.
If it's only a couple of stages in Scotland it will be a little too early in the race to have a rest day to allow the transfer to happen. The Giro d'Italia managed a start in the Low Countries last year by having, I think, the prologue and three stages there before a rest day transfer.
Maybe they could have a couple of stages down through England as well, heading for a Chunnel transfer?
@PS - the article spoke of specially arranged trains to transfer the riders but your idea of a stage in England too - say around London would be good as they could do the Grand Depart here, then transfer by train possibly only 4 hours and then another stage towards Kent?
you never know
It'd take a lot of trains, plus there's a lot of paraphernalia to shift with the Tour (publicity caravan, media village for depart and arrive, etc). Still, I'm sure if they wanted to do it enough they could sort it out. The important question is whether the TdF really want to do it.
Fingers crossed anyway...
According to article it would cost Scotland £5m. From memory of the article the next non-mainland France start is Corsica in 2014 - that will take some logistics.
Would be surprising if they managed a direct rail transfer from Scotland to France as they've never managed to arrange that for the people of Scotland (little bit of politics) but this would be great and would be a big financial boost to the country.
They surely won't be able to do it out of Edinburgh. The state of the road network here could never handle it (imagine them all going down on Princes St when the tram line suddenly appears below the pace car and goes into one side of the peleton!)
Paris - Roubaix involves level crossings and cobbled streets but I am not sure about huge pothholes
'Obviously' they'd shut the M8 for a day.
There is a precedent…
Prologue time trial around Arthur's Seat!
chdot: There is a precedent…
That would be 14 laps of the Plympton bypass near Portsmouth in stage 2 of the 1974 edition. Patrick Sercu won (it says here).
It appears Yorkshire has won the bid for the 2014 Tour.
Still close enough though to go and watch. :)
Boooo! But yeah, let's face it, I'll be going...
Yarkshire, Yarkshire, Yarkshire.
Will be interesting to see what the route is - a mix of steep hills* and dark satanic mills, I'd imagine.
Yarkshire getting it will likely knock any Edinburgian chances back to 2018 at the earliest...
*which means that there should be some great places to watch top cyclists crawling up 20% gradients. :D
The prologue around Arthur's Seat would have been great but a stage in Scotland, I'm not so sure about. The Scottish Tour of Britain stages have looked rather grim on television (and as grim close-up tbh).
Arthurs Seat time trials would have made the strava segments even more unreachable!
Oh well. Perhaps now CEC will buckle down to focus on the less glamorous task of providing some half decent infrastructure for ordinary cyclists?
I loved the Reporting Scotland piece last night - CEC pledging £1M (not on Leith Walk, but perhaps they knew it was never going to be spent!).
Trailed and illustrated by shots of cyclists on the Esplanade. Then final segment of voice over actually acknowledged the irony that the rules would need to be changed as cycling is banned here...
I sense the hand of a cycling subeditor/reporter!
Robert
Shall we have a write in campaign for the £1m to be spent on LW?
Roibeard: "as cycling is banned here..."
Wasn't that ban removed recently?
It was indeed. There have been new signs in place for a wee while now.
I was thinking it was interesting that CEC only got round to pledging its support this week, when ASO's decision (we now know) had clearly already been made.
Suggests the Scotland/UK bid was not as well plugged in to ASO as Yorkshire? Which may be because Yorkshire was originally planning for 2016 whilst Scotland was for 2017, so when the opportunity got bumped forward to 2014 Yorkshire's bid was more advanced.
The £1m budget would be from the tourism pot, not the transport pot, so it won't be avilable for Leith Walk. They could perhaps divert it to the Festival of Cycling, which in turn, once well established might help with a future bid for the TdF. ;o)
The £1m budget would be from the tourism pot, not the transport pot, so it won't be avilable for Leith Walk. They could perhaps divert it to the Festival of Cycling
Yeah right.
Methinks the 'street markets' of Rose Street will be rubbing hands thinking of what to do with the cash...
Very disappinted at the news, especially as UK Cycling had put its support behind the Scottish bid and that it would have encapsulated all 3 parts of Great Britain. Instead we are left with another entirely English sojourn for the TdF.
I hope the Edinburgh bid will still be accepted for a future Grande Depart but worry that it would be put back too many years or even usurped by a Glasgow one, seeing as they'd then have time to put one together if they desired. I'm not being anti-Glasgow (I was born in the area) but I naturally want it on my local patch and, tram works aside, I believe the Edinburgh route would be more visually stunning.
I'm sure Yorkshire will put on a good show, and congratulations to them, but I believe it's an opportunity missed.
@Focus As far as French people are concerned this is all England anyway so the distinction would have been way over their heads. My brother in law has a large and detailed French atlas which confidently labels the entire island Angleterre...
"Tour de France bid: City sets sights on 2017 after losing out to Yorkshire"
To be fair, York can claim to be a cyclist's city. Along with Cambridge, it has one of the highest modal shares for cycling in the UK (and one of the highest in Europe). Something to do with being flat?
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