Most disappointing to miss seeing a lot of Yorkshire's scenery from the air as I was quite looking forward to it. Must admit missing watching lots of chaps on push-bikes wasn't.

For those who do like watching chaps on bikes no doubt a real annoyance.

That's not much of a spoiler - no offense.

Here's the results page

Photo finish: https://twitter.com/CyclingHubTV/sta...49091291561984

Those who wanted to know the result were probably looking at the live text pages anyway. It's very easy to give away results and spoil any excitement for those having to watch a race at a later time. Best of luck to the broadcasters putting together highlights.

https://twitter.com/nedboulting/stat...57954367639554

Highlights ITV 4 8PM-9PM tonight.

Can anyone loan Verity a dictionary?


http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/tour...-womens-races/

Don't take a spare tube, or puncture repair kit, out on the next bike ride. The contingency is to check you don't have a puncture before leaving.

While ITV weren't showing pictures from Yorkshire, I was watching live dashcam video from a truck driver in Arkansas on YouTube.

Whilst we're having a moan about TV coverage I noticed the Bike Channel was showing highlights of todays stage in Turkey..........I'm not sure if ES switched to this during the day but if they did I hadn't seen it

First thing I noticed was that it was only 30 minutes which struck me as being a bit short for a days race........but then 10 minutes in they still hadn't shown any action. It was 10 minutes of Turkish Tourist Board footage, local women dancing, riders signing in ( a lot of that..........I don't know why they think we're fascinated by minutes of coverage of riders signing in), local dignitaries at the start

Ten minutes in and the race coverage starts........20 minutes in and they cross the finish line.........so that was 10 minutes of coverage of the stage

I don't know what the last 10 minutes of the highlights were as I switched over.....I don't think I'll bother with Bike Channel highlights again

To be fair though......when the Bike Channel have covered a race live during the day then the evening highlights can be much better and more extensive

I guess it's the bought in 'package' of highlights of races that they don't cover live that are a bit pointless

Unique podium prizes for the Tour of Yorkshire today, Jockey Silks (Doncaster racecourse) for the stage winners and a Hornby Flying Scotsman loco (sponsor Virgin Trains) for the overall leader.

Yep. You couldn't make it up. With that sort of ineptitude I'm surprised there weren't even more problems. I like the way he says "We are hopeful of having a plane that works tomorrow," So no more than hopeful.

PS - is it correct there was a backup plane for this eventuality but it was a) in France and b) not fully functional?

Hope the farce is not massively damaging to future sponsorship/coverage of the women's races.

I was looking forward to it more than the men's. The promotion of it being a live race, better prize money than for the men, and having the current world champ in a race starting in her home town was looking so good for the female side of the sport.

At least Lizzie 'let' someone else win a race for a change. All part of the strategy for Rio to not go into it red hot favourite, where she would be ganged up on by the other teams like the GB men in 2012.

Looking better (at the moment) for today. The troublesome plane from yesterday is just taking off from Leeds Bradford airport.

edit: the 2nd one is now getting ready for takeoff @ 1050.

A plane has flown up from France this morning to Durham airport. I'm wondering if it is backup. Reg FHLRA.

Another question mark over race organisation after yesterday

Start in Middlesbrough which is a pretty big city but did they not realise this would involve a 20 minute roll out...................people who are not regular watchers must have been wondering what the hell was going on.................

I don't know how long the roll out was in the end because I got bored and switched over to something else

Up on t'moor, Sky force the lead group into echelons, gaps slowly widening.....

been watching the footy but catching the end of this

inside the last 10K, 5 riders out front including the race leaders

Waiting for Tommy Voeckler to chuck the kitchen sink at it and try and get away....................

Voeckler too wily for the lot of them, Roche needed to get rid of him much earlier.

So this week's schedule is the Four Days of Dunkirk starting Wednesday, live on Eurosport, the Tour of Azerbaijan, not live also starting on Wednesday. And then the first three days of the Giro from Holland, starting on Friday.

Really enjoyable days racing, and couldn't be happier at the result. Always enjoy watching Voeckler.

Rather sorry that Eurosport weren't covering this final day. I generally watch cycling on there so I was not used to ITV4's frequency of ad breaks. Seemed like five minutes of (the same) ads every ten minutes for much of the day. But at least they covered the entire day.

Can I just have a moment of cred, please, for not boasting in a hugely annoying way, about my family member who was competing in each and every Stage. I thank you.

yes, why not......

Hurrah, thank you. It's been his life for as long as I can remember.

You can tell us who it is if you like......your secret will be safe with us

And there's only a handful of people who read this thread.......

I think he deserves a bit of peace and quiet after 3 days of riding at this level. But thanks.

Fair enough !......and well done to him !