Tour de Yorkshire

It got my vote as the best bus shelter on the route of the second running of the Tour of Yorkshire Cycle Race, if not in the whole wide world.

I should correct the title of the race.

It is the Tour de Yorkshire, not a colloquialism, but to acknowledge that the same organisers do something similar over three weeks across France. That century plus aged Grand Tour is invariably run in glorious July weather, 30 plus degrees temperature, reliable sunshine, still and calm conditions.

I was in the bus shelter because the Yorkshire weather was, well, just Yorkshire weather with four seasons in just the one day.

Our best intentions (me and my son) to catch sight of Stage One of the race was to ride westwards from home in Hull for 35 miles. That was to the location of the first Sprint Prize of the day. We expected the race to still be together at what would still be an early part of the total distance of 115 miles from Beverley to Settle. That would make for a no holds barred battle to the sprint line which with a world class field of riders would be something to savour.

Within the first few miles of setting off, and still within the city boundary, I realised that I had not taken into account the weather factor.

It was howling a gale, of epic proportions and yes, a westerly.

A certain level of fitness and a low crouching position over the handlebars can help to mitigate a strong wind. I lacked the first and in busy early friday morning commuter traffic I was reluctant to get too involved in the latter.

It was a case of making an executive decision.

Instead of turning left at the roundabout to head west, we went the opposite direction with our new destination to be the village of Etton which was just under 5 miles into the stage route but some 15 miles away to us.

The prospect of a relentless west to east headwind now became in reality an unsettling crosswind.

It was the lesser of two evils as far as cyclists are concerned. We had not made a defining decision for a pleasant days ride to see the race. This was evident from the horizontal plane of the rain and sleat as it hammered into our left ears where they protruded out of our cycling helmets.

The road were treacherously slippery so even a rare but very welcome downward slope had to be approached with caution. This meant about 10 miles per hour less than on a dry day, and adding the the wind factor meant a painfully slow forward progress.

We had left home at a time allowing for the intended distance and duration. Even after reviewing our options the prevailing wintry conditions could still make us late to see the race pass by.

There was no blue in the sky, now an all pervading gun metal grey. Our new course, more on a south to north axis was in fact a bit like navigating a yacht in full sail as we took  to zig-zagging back streets and side roads toward our new destination.

This gave a bit of relief from the side swiping wind as "well to do" suburban houses and bungalows acted as a wind break. Even better in providing shelter were the dense hedges on the headlands of the fields as we crossed the green belt towards the stage start and host town.

A few cyclists showed better early season fitness as they passed us on the undulating lanes which fringed Beverley. I do not want to compound the sexist allegations which caused Shane Sutton to resign from British Cycling this week but I was actually overtaken by a girl. I did catch her up but when the traffic lights changed to green she streaked ahead again.

There were some short, steep inclines between the villages of Walkington and Cherry Burton made more technically difficult, or as I call it knackering by the constant inclement weather.

The worst slope was however the man made ramp over the former railway bridge to Etton. It is a true hump- back bridge with the deep score marks from the impact of  exhaust systems  and sumps testifying to its popularity as an improvised launch pad for lads (oops, and lasses) with their cars.

The pub at Etton was capitalising on its position on the race route in that at eleven o'clock in the morning it was fully open for business. Steamed up windows and the buzz of conversation were obviously side effects of good patronage and I had to fight my way through to the impromptu coffee bar under  the arched opening to the evening-only restaurant.

I was chilled to the bone and could not easily extricate from my back jersey pocket the damp fiver to pay for two hot drinks and a couple of chocolate covered flapjacks (proceeds to the local church fund).

Not wanting to miss any of the build up to the race we made our way out of the lounge bar to the beer garden. This was now a busy bike park and more cyclists arrived bearing club jerseys from all points of the compass. Police motor bikes took the sharp left turn onto Main Street with a good blast of their raucous twin tone horns. This flurry of activity excited the large crowd of locals and visitors in the pub car park but that was nothing compared to the cheers as the forward convoy of race vehicles made the same manouevre. It was still one of the coldest days of the year and in late April!

At this time I had claimed sovereignty of the bus shelter.

It faced due south and so was perfectly protected from the wind and precipitation.

The bench on the back wall was some comfort to take the weight off my frost bitten limbs but I could not fully relax, not with the imminent arrival of the race. I took to a programme of arm waving and knee jerking to try to re-introduce a blood flow to depleted muscles and tendons and get warm.

Fortunately my erratic physical routine was out of direct view of the crowd.

It was a nice bus shelter, clean and tidy. Even the limited graffiti, synonymous with all bus shelters, was of a good calibre, in nice script and grammatically and anatomically correct.

The race, already fragmented by the harsh climatic conditions and, I later learned, an unfortunate mass crash on a slippery cattle grid, came and went within a matter of seconds.

It was thrilling.

We then had to wait for the road to re-opened to traffic.

I had by then worked out the logistics involved to jack up the bus shelter and transport it, all in the cover of darkness, to my own home so that I could, on a whim, recreate my own perfect environment in which to, at least, dream of being a good cyclist.