Tour of Britain comes to Glastonbury

Somerset and Devon County councils have teamed up again to bring the Tour of Britain cycle race to the region in September. The south west routes for stages 4 and 5 were announced in Wellington with local county councillors and the Mayor of Taunton enjoying an awesome demonstration of stunt mountain biking by thinkbikes.com who specialise in advanced bike handling workshops.

You too can take the challenge

The Prostate Cancer charity have partnered with the Tour of Britain for the second year to hold a their own event ‘Unite ByCycling . The idea is  to give people the chance to follow in the tracks of the pro riders and take on the official route in three different distances,175km,70km or a special family 2km to be held on Sunday September 5th.

Promoting the charity in this way has been really good for public awareness of this male cancer which is the most common in UK men ,with one man dying every hour due to the reluctance of men to get checked. Great progress has been made in treatment and caught early it is relatively simple to treat. A friend of mine who was not diagnosed until his had spread to tumours in his back was given three years to live, ten years on he has been helped by hormone therapy and runs daily.

The Tour of Britain is the UK’s biggest professional bicycle race, attracting the world’s top cyclists who compete on British roads for the right to wear the yellow jersey.  Over the past five years, Olympic, World and Commonwealth Champions have ridden The Tour of Britain, alongside stage and jersey winners from all three Grand Tours.

 British riders too Mark Cavendish, Roger Hammond and Olympic Gold Medallist Paul Manning have all won stages in recent editions of the race..

The tour organisers are giving some of the smaller towns who have previously missed out the chance to be involved this time around.

Although not coming through Taunton,it will be close enough for people to join in if they want to and the whole point of the of the event is to get communities involved with bicycle related events of their own, particularly local schools.

Stage 4: Minehead to Teignmouth will start near the West Somerset Railway, Minehead at 10.15am on Tuesday September 14th and head to Wheddon Cross, Roadwater, Bilbrook, Blue Anchor and Watchet. There will then be the first Category 2 King of the Mountains climb of the day on the B3190 near Raleighs Cross.

The route passes through Huish Champflower, Wiveliscombe, and Wellington before crossing the border into Devon.On passing through Hemyock, Dunkeswell and Awliscombe, the riders face another Category 2 King of the Mountains Climb on the A375 heading out of Honiton, and then a Category 1 Climb at Peak Hill in Sidmouth.

The race then winds its way from Budleigh Salterton, Woodbury, to Starcross and Dawlish, before the stage finishes at Teignmouth seafront at approximately 2.15pm

Stage 5: Tavistock to Glastonbury

Starting at Tavistock Town Hall, it’s not long before the riders face an early Category 1 King of the Mountains Climb before they reach Princetown and head across Dartmoor National Park.

As the route reaches Mid Devon there will be a Sprint at Crediton before heading on to Cullompton, Willand and Uffculme.

A Category 1 King of the Mountains Climb at Coombe Hill near Hemyock sees the route head back into Somerset, taking in Staple Fitzpaine, Ilminster and Curry Rivel before another Sprint at Langport.

From there the race heads on to Somerton, passing through Butleigh before the stage finishes in the High Street in the historic town of Glastonbury.