Women's Tour of Britain

Now we have something / quite-a-lot to discuss and celebrate.
thirdcrank
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Re: Women's Tour of Britain

Post by thirdcrank »

OK

I'd not want the future of women's bike racing to be sidelined by a discussion of my limited IT skills. :D
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pjclinch
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Re: Women's Tour of Britain

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TrevA wrote:I've been watching it every day on the ITV player. I'm currently watching Sunday's stage. There's been some good racing, but I'd like to see more of a challenging course, with some big climbs close to the finish. The stages seem to be similar each year, whereas for the men's tour, it varies from year to year. I think the TV coverage has been quite good. Perhaps they could show more racing, but I like the interviews with the riders before the start.


AIUI the first edition was heavily East-Anglia centric so that it was easy for European teams to get to the event and keep up with the stages. Hopefully the increased financial muscle will help move it even further than it's got so far. When the first edition ran, Marianne Vos was travelling between races in a campervan with her parents and cat, in the coverage last week I definitely saw a Waowdeals coach so things are on the up, but the perspective point is that the #1 women's team, Boels Dolmans, have 3 full time non-racing staff while Sky have about 120 (IIRC from a recent interview with Lizzie Deignan). There's a way to go...

We've seen that given as good a course a women's race can give just as exciting a race as a men's. The main problem is now getting the courses as good.

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mjr
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Re: Women's Tour of Britain

Post by mjr »

What I want to know is did the woman by the 3km sign on the final stage get her hat back? ITV would cover that on the tdf ;)
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thirdcrank
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Re: Women's Tour of Britain

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This race had a report every day in the Daily Telegraph sports section (once the domain of Phil Liggett and before that J.B. Jock Wadley.) There was quite a lot of advertising of the race by Skoda in there, including at least one wrap-round cover. I was sort-of aware that the main sponsor was OVO Energy, which I visualised as a sort of cross between OXO and Ovaltine. Having just checked, I see they sell the other sort of energy in the same was as Centrica or NPower.

Re the stages, the roads are the same for everybody. I'm not privy to the financing of bike races but I get the impression that the idea is that towns bid to host stage starts and finishes. After a lot of scepticism about value for money, Welcome to Yorkshire seems to have local authorities falling over themselves to be on race routes, with the Worlds in prospect for next year. None of this happens on its own.

ASDA being sold off to Sainsbury's may affect their sponsorship of the women's involvement in the TdeY. It's big business with not much to do with things like equality, unless it helps the bottom line.
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Re: Women's Tour of Britain

Post by Stradageek »

Best viewed live. By cycling fast I managed to intersect the route through Northamptonshire three times. The crowds were friendly, enthusiastic and knowledgeable and the school kids that were ushered to the roadside were wonderfully loud and manic - cheering each rider in the 50 motorbike entourage but saving the loudest screams for the peleton.

Newnham hill was pure mini-TDF, riders all close enough to touch.

I guess the fact that they all looked to be 15yrs old and 7 stone in weight says more about my age than anything else :?
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Re: Women's Tour of Britain

Post by Vorpal »

thirdcrank wrote:This race had a report every day in the Daily Telegraph sports section (once the domain of Phil Liggett and before that J.B. Jock Wadley.) There was quite a lot of advertising of the race by Skoda in there, including at least one wrap-round cover.

Jock Wadley was a member of Colchester Rovers, and there is a race in that part of Essex every year called the Jock Wadley Memorial Race. I know many cyclists who knew him. A few lament that there has never been anyone to write about cycle racing the way Jock Wadley did.
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thirdcrank
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Re: Women's Tour of Britain

Post by thirdcrank »

... ASDA being sold off to Sainsbury's may affect their sponsorship of the women's involvement in the TdeY. ...


By coincidence, there's a report today that CYBG is taking over Virgin Money and will use the name on all their branches to have a national identity. The YB in that anonymous bunch of initials is Yorkshire Bank, an outfit which has existed in name only for many years, the name having been retained only for marketing reasons around here. Once the Yorkshire Bank name goes, they'd have no obvious reason to sponsor the Tour de Yorkshire.
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pjclinch
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Re: Women's Tour of Britain

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pjclinch wrote:AIUI the first edition was heavily East-Anglia centric so that it was easy for European teams to get to the event and keep up with the stages. Hopefully the increased financial muscle will help move it even further than it's got so far. When the first edition ran, Marianne Vos was travelling between races in a campervan with her parents and cat, in the coverage last week I definitely saw a Waowdeals coach so things are on the up...


Though it turns out that the Vos family camper, and cat, are still doing the rounds! (but I don't think because it's the only realistic option any more, things are on the up)

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awavey
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Re: Women's Tour of Britain

Post by awavey »

pjclinch wrote:
pjclinch wrote:AIUI the first edition was heavily East-Anglia centric so that it was easy for European teams to get to the event and keep up with the stages. Hopefully the increased financial muscle will help move it even further than it's got so far. When the first edition ran, Marianne Vos was travelling between races in a campervan with her parents and cat, in the coverage last week I definitely saw a Waowdeals coach so things are on the up...


Though it turns out that the Vos family camper, and cat, are still doing the rounds! (but I don't think because it's the only realistic option any more, things are on the up)


yes Sjekkie was on tour :) but lots of the teams still get billeted to budget hotels that arent always near the stage start. though I was impressed by the Waowdeals coach, that was properly big considering lots of the other teams are still using camper vans, though tbf I do remember UHC brought a coach over in 2015 but was never sure if theyd borrowed the mens team coach or that was their own. I thought I saw another team coach picture on social media as they were having fun at toll booths as it was left hand drive and the riders were having to pay .

but it is I think the same with the mens race, you get councils paying to host the stage starts/finishes which then ultimately determines the route of a stage and how it pans out and how the stages then all fit together so teams arent travelling for long hours in cars or coaches to get to the next stage.

The mens race is longer both in stages and distances so they get to extend where they visit and that allows them to travel more of the country. But in a given year you dont tend to find the same councils funding the whole set of mens stages + womens stages + tour series, they tend to pick just the one, and if you chuck in Tour de Yorkshire, the Ride London races, plus some of the bigger races like the Lincoln GP or Tour de Reservoir, you quickly actually start running out of places that can feature as a stage with a host partnering council, as naturally you dont want to be covering the same ground as its the uniqueness of the event that you are selling to the councils.


so for all the pictures of crowds, and there were undoubtedly very reasonable crowds in some key points,though I do think you have to exclude the school children who dont get the choice to skip lessons to watch the race go by not that they mind, I did actually overall it felt a bit low key compared to previous editions. I was speaking to some people at one of the town stage finishes who stayed in the same hotel I did, and despite them being in the town that day, they were completely oblivious to the race going on around them and completely missed it. so it still feels like theres more that can be done to make it a really big event.
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