15 Sep

TOUR OF BRITAIN STARTS IN ROCHDALE

Cycling stars rain supreme as Tour of Britain starts in Rochdale
The world's top cyclists endured a soggy start to Britain's biggest road race.    The people of Rochdale gave superstars including Olympians Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas a warm welcome as torrential rain swept through the town centre.

The gruelling race, said to be the toughest tour in seven years, will take the 96 cyclists, including Tour de France competitors, across England and Wales, finishing in London.

Rochdale, with its iconic grade one Gothic town hall, was chosen as the venue to start not only the north west stage of Britain's answer to the Tour de France but the whole eight-day challenge.

Bradley Wiggins, who won three medals on the track at the Athens 2004 Olympics, two gold medals at the Beijing Olympics and came in fourth in the 2009 Tour de France, said: "Rochdale is fabulous. I have never been here before as I usually steer clear of this side of the M61. But it looks great."

Chimes from the town hall clock heralded the start of the race at 10.45am on Saturday.

Cycling fans from Rakewood, Littleborough, said: "It is unbelievable that this event is starting in Rochdale. "We went to see the Tour de France in Paris but we never got such an intimate view as this."

Firefighters from Bamford, members of the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Cycling Club, were also among the spectators. They said: "It's brilliant that the Tour of the Britain is starting in Rochdale."This is great publicity for the town and I hope gets more people into cycling."

The 16 teams of professional cyclists, including British road cycling team Team Sky, were cheered by hundreds of people.  Cyclists sprinted through Norden village past A J PROPERTIES OFFICE   and onto Edenfield past the Scout Moor Wind Farm.

They continued on the way north to Blackpool to finish the 131km first stage of the race on the seafront.

To mark the race there was fun for all the family in rochdales, including a mountain bike obstacle course, a climbing wall, bouncy castle and face painting.

Tour Highlights will be shown on ITV4 every night of the race at 7pm.