Erstellt am: 6. 7. 2014 - 12:29 Uhr
Le Tour de Yorkshire
The people of Yorkshire are rarely effusive in terms of language.
“It’s something to see, isn’t it?” said Brendan, 25, when I asked him why he had turned up, in a fake French moustache, to sit by the road for two hours to see a bunch of cyclists whizz by. Hoping for a better quote, I turned to his friend to ask why he’d come. “I came with Brendan,” was the minimalist reply.
Barbara Köppel
But there was no doubt that the region had embraced its chance to host the premier étage of the Tour de France. This was, to quote the Yorkshire Post, the region's chance to "sell itself to the world" and it really took that opportunity. The overnight rain had cleared, leaving the hills gleaming emerald and along the road, in their no-nonsense way, the people of Yorkshire were celebrating the world famous Gallic race with bacon sandwiches, foaming brown beer and homemade cakes. The Tour de France, unlike corporate obsessed FIFA, doesn’t fuss over controlling what its fans eat or drink.
In a field above my home village of Kettlewell a polka-dot jersey had been shaped onto the hillside and a farmer had somehow coloured the wool of his sheep yellow. “The BBC news team has been here to film them twice,” I was told proudly in the Blue Bell Inn.
Chris Cummins
All the way up to Kettlewell I'd seen colourful bunting outside houses. A white pub had been painted over with red polka dots in the style of the King of the Mountains jersey and junctions were decorated with yellow painted bikes.
The Tour de France had never come this far north and it was a remarkable spectacle. There were beer tents and giant screens and thousands of amateur cyclists, often overflowing from their lycra, taking advantage of the fact that the usually busy narrow roads had been shut since 5am. By midday the crowds had been gathering for hours and they gave each amateur that passed a cheer, or a sarcastic remark if they were heading in the wrong direction.
chris cummins
All in all a million people are said to have lined the roads between Leeds and Harrogate. The Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme had dubbed Yorkshire the "Belgium of England" for its enthusiasm for cycling.
On the short but fierce climbs on the narrow roads through the moorland spectators had gathered like swarming bees. You could see neither the grass nor the road for the mass of colour.
Last year’s Nairobi-born British winner Chris Froome was welcomed into usually sleepy Kettlewell with a giant sign reading “Jambo Froome. Harambee”.
I think it is fair to say nothing nearly as exciting as this had happened in Kettlewell since they filmed Calendar Girls, a movie about mature strippers, here over a decade ago.
The local shop had cashed in by selling little cycle shaped earrings and it was staying open all night. I’ve been away for a long time and it was like returning to a fairy-tale England, where little stalls sold homemade cakes and promised their tea was the best in the Dales.
chris cummins
Before he arrived with the other 197 riders, all bent over their handlebars in the cool northern English sunshine, the crowd were left to entertain themselves by cheering the fleet of advertising vehicles throwing free samples of sweeties into the crowd. There were even cheers for the motorcycle policemen.
There was an inevitable disappointment as the cyclists arrived, of course. We whooped as a trio of breakaway riders sped by and then laughed with delight as the bunched peleton swept over the S-bend of the 400 year old Kettlewell bridge before disappearing up the Dale towards the first big climb over Cray, a slope so steep that my 4-gear student car couldn’t make it with passengers in the back.
After hours of waiting they had arrived and disappeared within 40 seconds. “Is that it?”, asked a woman to my left. I’m afraid so – that’s the Tour de France.
It’s doubtful British sprint hope Mark Cavendish had time to read the “Go Cav” signs that locals had painstakingly chalked into the road.
We headed to the village hall where there were more bacon sandwiches and more of the warm dark beer and a big screen to follow the progress of the race to the sprint finish in Harrogate.
In the end Cavendish crashed and there were gasps of horror from the crowd. He dislocated his collar bone.
“You feel deflated don’t you?”, said Marianne, who’d been watching: “After Andy Murray in the tennis and the England football team, it's so disappointing.”
It has been a delightfully nightmarish sporting summer for British sport’s fans, but the Tour de Yorkshire is an event this region is unlikely to forget in a hurry.
Chris Cummins