Tour of Britain cycling event to come through Rochdale

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The Tour of Britain will pass through Rochdale on Sunday 3 September

Rochdale will welcome cyclists taking part in the Greater Manchester stage of the Tour of Britain event on Sunday 3 September.

The 163.6km route is scheduled to start in Altrincham, take a tour anticlockwise around Greater Manchester before heading back through Wigan towards Manchester city centre. The hill climbs, dubbed as ‘King of the Mountains’, come at the Rake in Ramsbottom and Grains Bar.

The culmination of what is stage one of the tour will be at Deansgate, the scene of a memorable victory from recently-crowned world champion Mathieu van der Poel.

Spectators are encouraged to come out and line the route to cheer on the peloton as it makes its way through the town. 

The route through Rochdale will see the cyclists enter the borough at Burnedge from High Crompton on Broad Lane and then turn down Oldham Road, turning right at the central retail park onto Wood Street, Molesworth Street and up John Street.

The route then goes left onto St Mary's Gate and riders will turn right onto Spotland Road, continuing onto Edenfield Road and through Norden towards Edenfield.

In order to reduce disruption, road closures will only be in place for short periods of time whilst the riders go through. The Tour of Britain team will be operating a ‘rolling road closure’ which means roads on the route would only be closed for around 30 minutes at a time.

Cyclists are expected to be entering the borough at around 1.30pm and leaving around 2pm.

Live coverage of all eight stages will be shown on ITV4 in the UK.

For more detailed timings on when the cyclists will be at different locations within the borough, visit the Tour of Britain website.

George Lythgoe, Local Democracy Reporter