
This year the final stage of the 2019 OVO Energy Tour of Britain will take place in Greater Manchester.
This is the first time in 15 years that Britain’s biggest professional cycle race will return to Greater Manchester this September as all 10 of the city’s boroughs feature in the final stage on Saturday 14 September. The Manchester Stage will see the peloton taking on a 165-kilometre route starting in Altrincham and finishing in Manchester city centre. Far from being a ceremonial end to the tour, stage eight includes almost 2,000 metres of climbing, including the famous climb of the Rake at Ramsbottom, before finishing on the iconic Deansgate in Manchester city centre.
There are a number of different ways your local community can get involved with the Tour of Britain in Manchester, and use the event to inspire young people to get active and involved in cycling.
Watch the Race
On Saturday 14 September, the race will pass through all ten boroughs of Greater Manchester, heading through many towns and villages and providing many areas the opportunities to get out on the roadside and watch the world’s top cyclists in the thick of the action.
The ETA schedule (on Tour of Britain Website) can help you plan in advance travel options so you can plan to provide as many people the opportunity to watch the race pass, where they can wave flags and banners they may have created (see next sections for more information).
Adopt a Team
Encourage groups to adopt a team! Welcome the riders and teams to Manchester by showing your support for them.
Each of the 20 teams in the race come from all around the world and will have their own distinctive jersey and colours, making it easy to create posters, flags or even face painting in the team colours. You will be able to find the list of teams and their jersey colours on the Tour of Britain’s website, as well as links to the team’s own website and social media.
Open Streets
Greater Manchester has signed up to the Open Streets movement; a programme of events that temporarily open streets to people by closing them to cars.
The Open Streets concept started in the USA in 2011 and aims to improve the quality of life Open street events are a way to turn your street into a safe and vibrant space for residents and neighbours to come together, to take ownership of your street and enjoy activities of your choice.
The events are led and managed by you, the residents and involve temporary closures of residential streets to through traffic.
Transport for Greater Manchester has launched a new 10-step toolkit to help residents and communities who are interested in hosting an Open Streets event.
As well as accessing the toolkit, residents interested in hosting events can loan equipment including diversion signage and temporary filtering items such as planters from Transport for Greater Manchester. Get in touch with the Sustainable Journey’s team for more details Sustainable.Journeys@tfgm.com.
An Open Streets event is a perfect way to bring a community together to enjoy their local streets in a new and different way – be it for play, places to sit and socialise a street party or even a sports day. This often creates an ‘active’ neighbourhood.
Please make your local contact aware if you intend to get involved with the Tour of Britain: Andrew Meadows – andrew.meadows@salford.gov.uk
Follow the Tour on social media:
#OVOToB
Twitter: @TourofBritain
Facebook: @ToBcycling