SPECTATORS have 174km (108miles) of Devon’s roads to choose from when it comes to watching the Devon Stage Tour of Britain on Monday, September 3.

The race is being hosted by Devon County Council, supported by East Devon District Council and North Devon Council and working with Cranbrook Town Council and Barnstaple Town Council.

Stage 2 of the race starts in one of the UK’s newest towns, Cranbrook in East Devon and finishes in Barnstaple, North Devon.?The race returns to Barnstaple for the first time since 2012, when the town hosted the stage start.

Crowds are being tipped to exceed 2016’s record of 260,000 spectators that lined the route in Devon.

And once again the advice is to leave plenty of time to travel to where you’re planning to watch the action, to avoid delays.

As well as the start and finish venues, there are some exciting places on the route to see 120 of the world’s top professional cyclists competing.

The stage takes in communities including Cranbrook, Ottery St Mary, Tiverton, Witheridge, South Molton, Combe Martin, Ilfracombe, Combe Martin and Barnstaple.

Among the top class British riders taking part this year are Tour de France winners Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome, while Devon’s George Pym is also in the line up. ?Other world-leading cyclists to throw their hat into the ring this year include Primož Roglic who won Tour de France stages in 2017 and 2018 and finished fourth in this year’s race.?He has been described as one of the most exciting riders in the world – the fastest descender in the peloton.?Andre Greipel, a five time stage winner in the Tour of Britain race, and 11 times stage winner  in the Tour de France is also competing, as are Marcel Kittel and Alex Dowsett, both former stage winners and race leaders in the Tour of Britain.

Places to watch

There are four SKODA King of the Mountains and three Sprints to watch this year:

Sprints

Sprint 1: Tiverton (Blundells Road) 12.27pm

Sprint 2: Nomansland 12.51pm

Sprint 3: Landkey 1.40pm

King of the Mountains (KOM)

KoM 1: Chineway (Ottery St Mary) -  the 2.9-kilometre climb averages around five per cent 11.21am

KoM 2: Bratton Fleming – 1.56PM

KoM 3: Challacombe (Woolacombe) – 2.52pm

Councillor Stuart Hughes, Devon County Council’s Cabinet Member for Highways with responsibility for cycling said: "This year promises to be the best Devon stage ever held, and given the quality of the previous Devon stages that’s saying something. 

"There’s local interest with Devon’s George Pym, who was inspired to take up cycling after watching the Tour Series in Exeter 2009 racing for Madison Genesis and with elite cyclists like Geraint Thomas, Chris Froome,  Roglic and Greipal it’s certainly the strongest Tour of Britain line-up I’ve ever seen.?"And it’s all free to watch, so dust off your bike, cycle to a nice spot with some friends, soak up the atmosphere and have  a great day!"

Executive Member for Environment at North Devon Council, Cllr Rodney Cann said: “We are extremely excited and proud to welcome the Tour of Britain to our beautiful district and we will do what we can to ensure any disruption to residents arising from the event is minimal. Our waste and recycling crews will be out collecting even earlier than usual on the big day, so if you live near the route please bear that in mind and put your bins, bags and boxes out before 6am. We have some parking restrictions in place in Barnstaple too, so it’s best to leave the car at home and work out an alternative route to your destination.”     

The cyclists will leave Cranbrook at 11am and are expected to arrive at Witheridge at 12.55pm.

Follow Tour of Britain on social media: “Twitter”: #ToB2018, @DevonTOB, @TourofBritain, https://twitter.com/DevonToB .