Nick Westby: Yorkshire will show way forward as cycling learns to smile again

From the groundbreaking achievements of Sir Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome to the massive success of our Olympians and the knock-on effect of more people getting out on their bicycles, there has never been a stronger vibe of positivity surrounding cycling in this country.

And now Yorkshire, the country’s largest county, is set to enhance that.

The White Rose has embraced the feelgood factor on two wheels more than any other by luring the greatest test of endurance in all of sport to its roads next summer.

If British cycling has a smile on its face, it will be grinning like a Cheshire cat after two days in Yorkshire next July.

Because the county will welcome the biggest cycling caravan with open arms.

There may be a year to go to Le Grand Départ in Leeds, but Yorkshire folk have already made Tour organisers and representatives feel right at home.

Ever since the first rumblings of a potential stage of the Tour de France coming here were mooted, there was never any doubt that the people of the Broad Acres would do the sport proud. With a customary up-and-at-em attitude, the initiative was seized by Welcome to Yorkshire and the contracts were signed right under the noses of bigger cities and more heavily-backed bidders.

And given fair weather or foul next year, this county will show why it was the right choice.

The two stages are diverse and beautiful, presenting the cyclists with one of the toughest baptisms in Tour history, and the world with a new view of the region’s countryside, its quaint towns and its booming cities.

The Tour’s visit to Yorkshire could be just the shot in the arm cycling needs as it emerges from its murky past.

The Lance Armstrong affair rocked the sport to its very core with cycling’s leading light dragging it, not even kicking and screaming, into the dark ages of drug abuse. The Armstrong affair was the tip of an iceberg stained red by numerous blood doping scandals.

But no one man is bigger than sport, no matter who he is.

Cycling, and sport, endures. It finds new ways to improve, to evolve. Granted, cycling needs a better way to police itself, of that there is no doubt.

Hopefully Brian Cookson – a Lancastrian but we’ll forgive him for that – will get the chance to implement tighter control after putting his name forward as a candidate for the presidency of the Union Cycling International (UCI), the vote for which takes place in Florence in September.

The fresh approach of Cookson, coming from a background of positivity in Britain that is largely untainted by scandal, might just be the facelift cycling requires.

The breathtaking scenery of Yorkshire will only further restore the beauty of a sport that is as aesthetically pleasing on the eye as any.

And the chance to see Wiggins, Mark Cavendish and Chris Froome up close and personal, putting everything they have on the line in pursuit of the ultimate accolade, is a once in a lifetime opportunity for many of us.

They are heroes to believe in, people to inspire us, cyclists untainted by the past riding for a better future for their sport.

We as Yorkshire folk, whether we are sports fans or not, should embrace their appearance, and revel in the fact that the eyes of the world are on our roads, our country lanes and on our towns.

For the region as a whole the Tour’s brief, all-consuming visit will generate tens of millions of pounds for the local economy.

It is the largest single sporting event to ever come to this region.

The Tour de France has the capacity to put a smile on the face of every person it touches, just as the people of Yorkshire can put a smile back on the face of the world of cycling.