A DAY of festivities, including a spectacular bicycle ballet, a lifelike animatronic dinosaur and an international-class racing powerboat will mark the ending of stage one of the inaugural Tour de Yorkshire in Scarborough.
Starting in Bridlington at noon on Friday, the race heads over the North York Moors to Whitby, then comes down the coast to finish on Scarborough’s North Bay between 4pm and 4.30pm.
Celebrations in the town will kick-off in the morning with a fairground organ playing at the finish line on the Royal Albert Drive from 9.30am.
Bicycle Ballet’s strolling/cycling promenade-style Strictly Cycling, an exciting “cycle-about” show performed by professional dancers, combines improvisation, choreography and visual performance with the everyday experience of riding a bike, adding a hint of the surreal and comical. It can be seen outside the Rotunda at 11am and on the North Bay at 12.30pm and 2pm.
T-Rex, a terrifyingly life-like dinosaur, will be scaring the crowds outside the Rotunda Museum between 2.45pm and 3.45pm.
All-day events include a fan park at the Open Air Theatre, with a big screen showing cycling films, and the race live from 2.30pm to 4.30pm, and craft and food stalls.
Other events include:
• 11am to noon: Friarage School Choir welcome visitors off the trains at Scarborough Railway Station;
• 11am to 3pm: Music in the town centre, end of Aberdeen Walk, including the Ramshackle Shantymen, Sax on the Beach and the Skyliner Swing Band
• 11am to 4pm: Pit stop book sale at Scarborough library
• 11am to 4pm: music from Yorkshire Coast College on the seafront, outside the Futurist, Aquarium Top, and bottom of the St Nicholas Gardens
• 1pm to late afternoon: live music on an open-topped bus travelling from the South to the North Bay, then parked outside Blue Crush in the afternoon, including Scarborough College Choir, and Sax on the Beach
• Noon to 4.30pm: various activities at the Rotunda Museum, including Strictly Cycling at 11am, a cycling sculpture from Graham Anderton, the chance to see a vintage boneshaker and penny farthing, and T-Rex at 2.45pm and 3.45pm
• 1pm to 2pm: inclusive cycling – a procession of adapted bikes on the Marine Drive (near Hairy Bob’s Cave).
• Evening: Pop-up cinema party at Scarborough Castle: The Hunger Games (12A), doors open 7pm, entertainment from 7.30pm, film starts at dusk, about 9pm.
Other events include local schools taking part in British Cycling events organised and championed by Richardson’s Cycle Club, Scarborough.
Up to 60 children each from primary schools along the route of stage one – Hunmanby, East Ayton, Hackness and Seamer – will ride timed courses in the morning for fun and to help develop cycling skills. School children and teachers will then go out later in the day to line the route and cheer on the official riders.
At 5.30pm, there is an off-road style event for children (under-eights and under-16s) and adult women at Oliver’s Mount. All abilities welcome: people must take their own bikes. The course is on grass with an obstacle or two. Entry fee is £4 per person. Go to letour.yorkshire.com
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