New Tour de France “app” launched

TdF app

Amidst growing concern about the escalating cost of staging the Tour de France start in York, the Council has launched a new mobile phone “app”.

It is called Cycle Yorkshire Ride The Routes.

Enabling cyclists to experience the Tour de France route from their mobile, the app is designed around the Yorkshire stages of the Grand Départ and encompasses information on the routes, hints and tips on how to cycle specific sections and general rural cycling road safety advice.

The information is presented in short videos on the app and text (for areas where mobile signal is limited). The film clips show Jamie Sharp (Semi pro rider for Team Hope) cycling each section with Jonathan Cowap (BBC York Radio Presentator) providing the advice and information in the voice over.

The app has been created as part of an ongoing Regional Safer Cycling Project that is the work of a Partnership Team, made up of representatives of every Yorkshire & Humber Road Safety Partnership.

Lead by City of York Council on behalf of the region. Kathryn Mackay, Road Safety Project Officer at City of York Council, said, “The app is aimed at all those cyclists and groups who are coming  to Yorkshire to ride all or part of the Grand Départ routes like their professional heroes.

“We launched the app at the Welcome to Yorkshire’s Y14 event yesterday and the interest and positive feedback has been phenomenal.”

As we approach the start of the Tour de France race in July and even more people are taking up cycling on our roads it’s fantastic that they now have access to route information but it’s also more important than ever that road safety is at the foremost of peoples’ minds, which this app provides.”

Ruth Gore from Safer Road Humber said “It truly is a partnership arrangement with many people, from across all Yorkshire’s and Humber authorities playing their parts, using their specific skills to make a holistic successful group of campaigns that none of us could have done without each other. We have been very successful as a Regional Group gaining a number of National Awards for our Partnership Work and the app follows on nicely from the Urban Cycling Guide that was completed last year”.

The app is aligned to the Cycle Yorkshire Legacy and has backing from Welcome to Yorkshire.

The app is avilable to  download now (on smart phones) at bit.ly/cycleyorkshire

For more details about the Tour de France visit www.york.gov.uk/tourdefrance

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