I wonder how many of the thousands who lined Yorkshire’s lanes and highways to cheer the cyclists of the Tour de France know who actually won the race?
There they were, urging the contestants on, as if their lives depended on it. They waved banners, they shouted and screamed, for the brief time the riders went past. Then they went home or to the pub or had a picnic and took no further interest.
Many told me they had had a grand day out and I, of course, was a miserable so-and-so for having no enthusiasm for the event. But then, my only interest in cycling started and ended with Victoria Pendleton.
The television coverage did, of course, show Yorkshire in all its glory. A wonderful kaleidoscope of dales and vales and moors.
But then, it’s Yorkshire. God’s own county.
We expected no less, but people elsewhere in the world might have thought: “By gum. But it’s as grand as they always said it was.”
Visitors who come here because they fell in love with Yorkshire on TV will be welcome. And I hope the bicycles, that still hang around lamp posts and are attached to buildings, will have been removed before they get here. One in particular, still has a rider astride it.
What would aliens think if they landed on Lindley Moor and had a quiet look round Huddersfield to gauge our level of civilisation before reporting back to the Galactic Federation?
“Lovely countryside, handsome Victorian architecture, shopping centre needs sorting out, good pubs, friendly people, but they they have little tolerance of cyclists who seem to take their life in their hands on the roads.
Many bikes have been confiscated and put on roofs as a warning and one poor chap has been nailed to the side of a building still astride his machine.
There is no clue as to his crime. Perhaps being a cyclist is reason enough.
“Recommendation to the Federation: give them another 100 years for the petrol to run out and everybody is on a bike before returning for a new assessment.”
So no tourists from outer space, then.
