Tour de Yorkshire organisers unveil 'challenging' 2017 route

The 2017 Tour de Yorkshire will finish with the toughest stage in the race's brief history, with organisers unveiling a challenging route on Friday.

The three-day race will conclude on April 30 with a 194.5-kilometre stage from Bradford to Fox Valley near Sheffield including eight categorised climbs - a total of 3,517 metres of climbing.

The third edition of the race, a legacy of the 2014 Grand Depart of the Tour de France, will begin on April 28 with a 173km stage from Bridlington to Scarborough's North Bay.

A day later, the peloton will tackle a 122.5km stage from Tadcaster to Harrogate - hours after the women's race uses the same route.

The stage will finish on Parliament Street in Harrogate - the spot where Mark Cavendish crashed out of the opening stage of the 2014 Tour.

Press Association Sport understands Harrogate will host all of the race finishes when the road world championships come to Yorkshire in 2019, and organisers have already said that several locations on the Tour route will be undergoing a dress rehearsal for that event.

That should help attract another world-class field of talent, and more of the bumper crowds which have defined this race since its debut last year.

"I can't wait to see the world's best riders tackling these routes," said Welcome to Yorkshire chief executive Sir Gary Verity. "We've worked hard to design a course which showcases Yorkshire's stunning scenery as well as delivering a thrilling sporting event."

Scarborough is fast building a strong relationship with the Tour, having hosted a stage finish in each edition to date.

It was there that French rider Thomas Voeckler pipped Team Sky's Nicolas Roche to overall victory earlier this year.

Stage one will follow a familiar approach to the spa town with the race heading through Whitby and Robin Hood's Bay.

The second stage will start on Tadcaster Bridge - due to reopen in January following damage in the Boxing Day floods last year - and follows a relatively flat route through Knaresborough, Masham and Ripon to reach Harrogate.

But it is the final stage which will have riders' attention. Borrowing from the 2014 Tour route, the race will head into the Yorkshire Dales and up the cobbled climb in Haworth before turning south to Penistone and a circuit finish around Stocksbridge featuring four categorised climbs.

Following on from the success of this year's event, the 2017 women's race will once more mirror the second stage of the men's event, and will again boast a £50,000 prize fund - among the biggest in the world for a women's race.

"It gives me a great sense of pride that we are leading the way in championing women's cycling," Verity added.

"This race is one of the most lucrative in the sport, attracting the best teams and riders from across the globe, and the challenging course will provide a real test of ability in front of massive crowds."