No Tour in London in 2017

I see that, after submitting the highest bid to secure the start of the Tour de France, London have now backed out at the last minute.

It seems that they have realised that, apart from putting in the highest bid, they also have all the associated costs of staging the event. Apparantly, 'Welcome to Yorkshire' (I assume the old Yorkshire Tourist Board) are still about £1million in the red after 2014.

What people don't realise is that ASO (the Tour owner and organiser) are a big business, in it for the money. 'Winning' the right to have a stage start or finish is simply down to paying enough money......hardly worthy of a knighthood for Mr Verity, I would say.