Inverurie and Alford gear up for the Tour of Britain cycle race
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The AJ Bell Tour of Britain cycle race gets underway on Sunday, September 4 from Aberdeen and the towns of Inverurie and Alford are set to play a central role.
Starting at 11am in Aberdeen City Centre, the race route takes an extended tour westwards across the Shire.
Heading north up the Beach esplanade and out through Bridge of Don, the route heads through Cothal to Keithhall and down into Inverurie where it completes a circuit of the town before moving over to Chapel of Garioch and on to Insch passing via Keig.
From Insch it heads to Kennethmont before turning south and taking the long run through Alford and on to Craigievar.
Passing through Tarland it swings back to Cambus O'May and along Royal Deeside to its finish line at Glenshee.
Along the way Inverurie and Alford will play a special part in the stage as they host two of the three sprint sections.
Starting off in Aberdeen where a full weekend of activities, including the Scottish Cycling Criterium Championships, is planned. when the riders meet 0KM (which you may hear referred to as “kilometre zero”) at Aberdeen Beach esplanade the race begins officially.
Often this is when a small group of riders, typically from different teams, will attack off the front of the race and ride together to distance themselves from the main peloton.
If there is a big group of breakaway riders, the main peloton behind may try to up their tempo in order to catch the break and not allow them to establish a strong time gap.
Out on the road, there is potential for lots to happen on the country route through Aberdeenshire and every team has a communication system where they can feed info from their team car to their riders and vice versa.
During the race, riders may encounter mechanical issues, such as flat tyres, broken chains, maybe a crash, which will require the team car to reach them and swiftly fix the problem – sometimes the rider may actually swap to a new bike to make sure they waste as little time as possible.
On every stage, there are designated SKODA King of the Mountains (KoM) sections.
These key climbs are where riders compete for points towards the SKODA KoM jersey, with three, Bennachie Forest, Lord's Throat and Suie Hill all located between Alford and Inverurie, with the fourth on the final approach to the Glenshee ski centre.
For many t hese are great places to watch the race as riders are often going at their slowest when they are tackling the hardest climbs.
But speed is also an element of the race and this stage includes three intermediate sprints sections.
Here riders contest points and time bonuses, so the action is fast and frantic and residents of Inverurie and Alford are in for treat with the first at Blackhall Road (Inverurie) and Montgarrie Road (Alford) while the third takes place over in Ballater.
With this stage finishing with a climb, expectations are that the best climbers will come to the front and look to gain time on their rivals.
In Inverurie from 10am till 2pm, there will be food and drink vans available with a pipe band performance and cycling will be encouraged with cycle parking at Kellas and cycling related stalls including Pedal Power, TEN Cycling Club.
The town's retailers are also getting into the spirit of the event with an ongoing window dressing competition being held.
A special cycling day is being held at the Grampian Transport Museum in Alford before and after the stage passes and as part of the “Cycle Aberdeenshire” programme.
The museum will be hosting a number of cycling related activities, with families able to book a session on the outdoor track and bring their bikes with them for a safe and traffic free ride.
In addition, the museum holds a fine collection of bicycles from across the last century and beyond and that option will be combined with Live Life Aberdeenshire’s Outdoor attractions being available, as the outdoor cycle track and climbing wall will be available free of charge.
ITV4 will broadcast live flag-to-flag coverage of every stage and nightly highlights show, allowing fans in the UK to watch wherever they are.
