The Tour de Yorkshire is a road cycling race in the historic county of Yorkshire, England which started in May 2015. It is promoted by the Amaury Sport Organisation and is rated as a 2.HC event as part of the UCI Europe Tour. From 2015 to 2017 it was a three-day race but in 2018 it expanded to four days, starting on Thursday 3 May and finishing on Sunday 6 May. The race will become part of the new UCI ProSeries in 2020. The idea for the race arose as a legacy event following the significant success of the visit of the 2014 Tour de France to the county. The first two stages of the 2014 Tour, also organised by ASO, from Leeds to Harrogate, and York to Sheffield, were nicknamed Le Tour de Yorkshire. To date, the race has always taken place in the days before the May Daybank holiday.
This took place from 29 April–1 May, and the route was Beverley–Settle, Otley–Doncaster, and Middlesbrough–Scarborough.
2017
The 2017 Tour was on 28–30 April, with starting or finishing places of Bradford, Bridlington, Harrogate, Scarborough, Sheffield and Tadcaster. It was later announced the route would be Bridlington–Scarborough, Tadcaster–Harrogate and Bradford–Sheffield with the women's race on the Tadcaster–Harrogate section.
2018
The tour was extended to four days running from Thursday 3 May to Sunday 6 May. On 28 September 2017, the start and finish points of the stages were announced as Barnsley, Beverley, Doncaster, Halifax, Ilkley, Leeds, Richmond, and Scarborough. It was later announced that the stages would be Beverley–Doncaster, Barnsley–Ilkley, Richmond–Scarborough and Halifax–Leeds, the women's race would be on part of the first two stages. It is estimated that this year's event bought in £98 million to the Yorkshire economy.
2019
In October 2018, it was announced that Barnsley, Bedale, Bridlington, Doncaster, Halifax, Leeds, Scarborough and Selby would all be either start or finish points for the stages in the tour of 2019. At the same time, it was revealed that Redcar would be a host town in 2020. In the same month, the worldgoverning body for the sport, announced that the TdY had been upgraded to HC status, the highest status for a multi-stage race which is not part of the world tour. Sir Gary Verity, the race organiser and chair of Welcome to Yorkshire said In December 2018, the stages were announced as running from Thursday 2 May to Sunday 5 May 2019; Doncaster–Selby, Barnsley–Bedale, Bridlington–Scarborough and Halifax–Leeds. The women's stages would be Barnsley–Bedale and Bridlington–Scarborough.
2020
The TdY in 2020 will run from 30 April to 3 May. Scarborough will not host either a start to, or a finish of a race, something which it has done since the inception of TdY in 2015. Scarborough Council decided not to bid to be a host town as it will be hosting the Armed Forces day in June 2020. The start or finish locations were announced on 22 November 2019 as Barnsley, Beverley, Halifax, Huddersfield, Leeds, Leyburn, Redcar and Skipton. The stages were announced on 17 January 2020, Beverley to Redcar, Skipton to Leyburn, Barnsley to Huddersfield and Halifax to Leeds. It was announced in March 2020, that due to the coronavirus outbreak in the United Kingdom, the TdY for 2020 would be postponed.
Impact
The Tour de Yorkshire has had a significant benefit to Yorkshire in terms of monetary gain and exposure to the world. In 2015 it generated £50 million for the Yorkshire economy, £60 million in 2016, £64 million in 2017, £98 million in 2018, and £60 million in 2019. It was estimated that the broadcast coverage of the event in 2017 was viewed by 9.7 million people across the world with over 2 million spectators lining the route. The 2018 Tour attracted crowds of about 2.6 million people, something which The Times estimated to be the largest spectator event in the United Kingdom. The spectators who lined the route spent 54% more on hospitality than on the previous TdY from 2017. Welcome to Yorkshire was reported to be in talks with the organisers of the Vuelta, in the hope to bring that road cycling event to Yorkshire in the future. During its 80-year history, the event has only held a stage outside of Spain three times before.
