Tour de Yorkshire Trophy Visit

As part of my new role as volunteer lifeboat press officer for Whitby RNLI I visited the station on Wednesday morning as it was the first stop for the official Tour de Yorkshire trophy as it made a journey around the area, before it heads to the race’s finishing location in a couple of weeks.

The trophy, which is Y-shaped and gold plated had to be carefully handled by its minder and could only be touched with white gloves, so we were all relieved that there were no mishaps when we took it on board the lifeboat for a photoshoot!

I then went on to various locations around Whitby and Scarborough to document the trophy’s visit for Scarborough Borough Council, including a bike training course at Airy Hill primary school, keen cyclist Stanley Chadwick’s 100th birthday where he received a surprise visit from Sir Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorshire, George Pindar school in Scarborough and lastly the Spa on the South Bay.

It was great to see people young and old engaging with the trophy, I love driving round and seeing the yellow-painted bikes and yellow and blue bunting along the race route. It is fantastic to see that we welcome and embrace this sporting event which whizzes along our beautiful coastline. I just hope we get better weather on the day that the mist, wind and drizzle we had on Wednesday – Welcome to Yorkshire!