The Yorkshire stages of this year's Tour de France are a radical departure from the usual first week of tootling along the Pas-de-Calais, where the main task for the super-focused contenders is not de-training too much before the race begins in earnest. Gilbert's manager has likened Stages 1 and 2 to the Belgian classics, and indeed the second day from York to Sheffield will see our heroes slog it out on some long climbs mixed up with sharp sections over difficult terrain, with a sting in the tail to equal the Fleche Wallone's Mur de Huy, the 30% Jenkin Road just before the finish.
Suitably for Le Yorkshire, the Mur's sanctified destination of the Chapel of Notre Dame is supplanted by a detour around the profane high altar of Meadowbank shopping complex snuggling up to the M1, but the selecting effect of such a brutal climb after 200km of Pennines will equal the Belgian adventures. The general state of UK roads often resembles Belgian cobbles, but with road repairs beyond the usual loose chip already underway, the worst surfaces should have been smoothed out by race day.
For sportive riders a lot of the route of Stage 2 will not rate highly, with several dual carriageway sections. However, there are sections worth riding, whether your affinity lies with the racing hero or the beauty of the terrain. As a local rider, I can promise there is fun to be had along the way as the race - or your journey - crosses Airedale and explodes into Calderdale. If your affinity is with narrowing walls of crowds of bonkers shouting devotees to the pain of the climber with a dash of mankini, you are already entered in the race and this tale is not for you.
The long, flat roll across the Vale of York is probably best tackled snuggled deep in a peloton in the rolling bubble of the tour caravan. Thirty miles of A59 would be no fun on any other day with the usual motoroid herd for company. The long slopes of Menwith Hill just after Harrogate, Blubberhouses Moor and Cringles, between Addingham and Silsden, are spaced with flat dual carriageways.
South of Airedale, the long drags of Calderdale are peppered with sharp V cut valleys, carved by gushing torrents of glacial floodwater that scoured the crust beneath the retreating edges of the ice cap as it moved north. For most local riders returning from a splendid roll around the Dales, the climb out of Keighley is a 10 mile drag with a mile of flat in the middle that helps you gather your forces for the last effort into the usual prevailing headwind and 410m of Cock Hill (renamed by Le Tour "Cote D'Oxenhope Moor"). For our racing entertainers, the route finders have laid out fireworks by replacing the flat with a drop into Haworth and a detour over three increasingly severe ramps, including a cobbled romp up Main St that approaches 20% near the top, before a final charge up Cock Hill.
Once out of Main St the gradient eases until it drops to cross another valley, then up again at 14% to Stanbury. A glance to the left shows the 18% start of a 400m climb just past the reservoir. Once over this, the climbing opportunists will need to make the most of a super fast descent into Oxenhope before they make a daring raid on the first polkadot points of the day at the foot of the moor. Three km at an average grade of 6% and those Cat 3 polkadots are in your swag bag.
Over the top of Cock Hill and a long flat might just allow a poetic view of the terrain to distract our racing demons before the descent into Hebden Bridge. Local poet Laureate Ted Hughes wrote, "The moors are a stage for Heaven's performance", and if the mood in heaven is good, big skies over the carved surface will lighten the straining souls over the halfway point in today's toil.
But if the heavens are less compliant, you'll need more than a gilet to get you off this hill. All the Calder Valley flash floods have occurred in June and July. We'll assume the sun is shining. Ted's wife Sylvia Plath, finally resting next to Heptonstall church which looks over the lower part of Cock Hill wrote, "I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery - air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, This is what it is to be happy."
The scenery will certainly be onrushing on this steepening descent as it falls into the gouged out Calder Valley, and whilst it starts out with wide views along long straights it turns into a twisting, technical, tree covered slingshot along the barrel of the valley.
The foot of the hill twists through the town until a last left hand bend delivers us onto a slight ramp up to the valley road. A flat mile later and at Mytholmroyd we turn right onto the longest continuous gradient in England. With no breaks in 8km of average 4%, it's more of a long false flat bringing us once more onto the moor. This time it is Blackstone Edge, another flat top. A left onto the A58 puts us on an old Milk Race route and a long descent into Ripponden.
Look right through gaps in the houses as you roll into town and you might catch a glimpse of the 17% crawl up Ripponden bank (Cat 3 Cote de Ripponden) onto Greetland Rd for a brief saunter along the Southern rim of the Calder Valley. A drop down into Greetland puts us onto the A629 for our last climb out of Calderdale, (Cat 3 Cote de Greetland) a dual carriageway that steepens to 14% at the top where we dip under the M62 ready to drop into Huddersfield.
After a fast dash through Huddersfield, it's the slow wind up to the longest and biggest climb of the day, Cat 2 Holme Moss. As this classic 22km climb lies just beyond the urbanity of Huddersfield, I have yet to sample its delights and all the joys of the remains of Stage 2 (which includes the large motoroid fauna rumbling along the single carriageway trans-Pennine A628). If anyone would like to join up to sample the 62 mile second half of Stage 2 from Hebden Bridge to Sheffield, get in touch using the contact form.
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