Thirteen years on from Yorkshire, how can the Tour de France Grand Départ in the UK in 2027 actually deliver a lasting legacy this time around?

In Penistone, South Yorkshire, there are still signs.

Cutouts of bikes, spray-painted yellow, hung on the sides of buildings. They've withstood the Yorkshire winters – 12 of them – relatively well. The paint is peeling slightly, the yellow a shade paler, but for those that know, they're unmistakable reminders of that day in 2014.

A few miles southwest of Penistone is Langsett Reservoir, and near it, Bank View Café. Twelve years ago, the café became an icon of the Tour de France after owner Pete Sparks painted the exterior in red polka dots to match the King of the Mountains jersey.

Reminiscing on the Tour passing through Yorkshire, Sparks says: "The atmosphere on the day was fantastic. I'd had a really exciting build-up to the event, with a lot of media interest around my celebration, so by the day itself it was feeling like a party. We hosted an evening at the cafe the night before, then were open from dawn. Crowds quickly grew to a throng of excited people by 2pm. We had a bar, TV coverage, BBQ. Then whoosh – past they swept!"

And the positivity didn't end when the riders had left. Sparks says the Tour passing has had a lasting impact.

"I have been lucky, being an actual established cyclists' cafe right on the route, I have been able to genuinely honour the event. I have a lovely room decorated out with artwork from then [there was an outpouring of artistic expression locally]. We experienced an immediate 10 per cent uplift in turnover, which we managed to sustain for many years."

But whilst memories of the 2014 Tour de France live on in pockets of the country, when you look beyond the spray-painted bicycles and polka-dot cafes, did the Tour really have the legacy amateur riders hoped it would? And with the Grand Départ once again coming to British shores in 2027, how can we make sure the event leaves a legacy in road-racing hearts, as well as on buildings?

Looking back on 2014 and beyond

Two days of racing. 2.5 million roadside spectators. A £128 million boost to the local economy. Perhaps most impressively, 22,000 hand-knitted miniature yellow jerseys were sent to Harrogate for bunting displays. The numbers don't lie. It was incredible.

And it isn't just the Tour de France the UK has been treated to over recent years. Its legacy events, the Tour de Yorkshire and the UCI World Championships in Yorkshire in 2019 and Glasgow in 2023, brought huge audiences and economic boosts.

In the midst of the events, and in the days and weeks following, it's hard to label these races as anything other than a massive success. In the aftermath of the Tour de France, participation across British Cycling's recreational programmes rose by 64% in 2014, with Yorkshire gaining around 18,000 more cyclists by 2015. Councils including Leeds City, East Riding and Wakefield invested millions into cycling infrastructure. The Tour inspired more people to cycle, and more authorities to help facilitate this.

But amongst the joy and celebration, there is always talk of a 'lasting legacy', and one would assume this refers to a legacy lasting years or decades. With the organisers of the 2027 Grand Départ already talking about what mark they want next summer's events to leave, did the lasting legacy of these 2014 events actually help boost the grassroots cycling culture many dreamed of? That's slightly less clear.

The golden era has definitively ended

When the Tour visited the UK in 2014, British cycling was at a peak. Brits were basking in the glory of the London 2012 Olympics – a Games which saw British Cycling take home 12 Olympic medals – and were well into a period of Tour de France dominance thanks to Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome and, later, Geraint Thomas. Ironically, 2014 was the only year from 2012 to 2018 that a Brit didn’t win the Tour de France – an incredible run, considering Wiggins' 2012 performance was the first-ever British win.

Cycling had become inherently British, Wiggins' sideburns a cultural icon, and Team Sky a respected household name.

But by 2017, Britain's so-called Golden Era of cycling had arguably become tainted. Bullying and sexism accusations from elite British cyclists such as Jess Varnish came amongst doping investigations into Team Sky, which would ultimately rule that an ethical line was crossed through Sir Bradley Wiggins' use of triamcinolone.

Whilst these revelations arguably needn't affect the average person on a club ride, they did little for Brits' faith in cycling – a sport already globally questioned in the wake of Lance Armstrong's confessions – and perhaps even less in terms of inspiring young riders, or their parents, to get involved with road racing.

And then there was the Tour de Yorkshire. At its peak, an incredible event. But through the resignation of Sir Gary Verity from Welcome to Yorkshire, postponement during COVID and financial issues, it came to an end. Little did we know it at the time, but 2019 was the final edition of the Tour de Yorkshire, which was, perhaps, the 2014 Tour's greatest legacy.

Outside of the pro ranks, perhaps the most honest metric of legacy is participation in cycling. Despite a significant rise in the late 2010s, the upward curve of Brits riding bikes has since ground to a halt.

Data from Cycling UK shows the average annual mileage travelled by bike in the UK during 2015-2019 was 3.5 billion. This rose to around 4.5 billion during COVID, but by 2024, it had returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Sport England produced a report saying that by the end of 2025, there were roughly 286,000 fewer adults cycling for leisure or sport than eight years ago. British Cycling membership peaked at 150,000 in 2019 but had dropped to 117,500 by 2025. This, perhaps, is the point to note. Cycling commuting, especially in London, has increased over recent years, but, bar a brief rise during lockdown, cycling for leisure or sport has gone down.

The next generation of competitive road cyclists

Gone is the Golden Era of Sir Bradley Wiggins, Sir Mark Cavendish, Lizzie Deignan, Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome. But on a global stage, British road cycling is well represented by the likes of Tom Pidcock, Pfeiffer Georgi, Zoe Bäckstedt and the recently retired Simon Yates, who brought a Grand Tour home for Great Britain as recently as 2025.

Yet where the elite field is stacked, many say grassroots racing is showing sizeable cracks. Event cancellations have become the norm, with field sizes shrinking.

Is the cost-of-living to blame? Cycling isn't cheap, and with a typical road race entry costing around £40 (and that's before we get onto travel and kit), it's unsurprising many deem it too expensive. Riders may have 30+ race days a year, pulling on both finances and time.

Although there is logic here, cycling seems to fare notably worse than other endurance sports. Ironman triathlon is seeing huge growth, with a 27% year-on-year increase. And at an entry cost of around £800, these things are much more costly than a local road race, although admittedly athletes would have much fewer races per year.

The London Marathon is set to host a two-day event next year following record-breaking application numbers. London Marathon Events also run Swim Serpentine, which attracted around 6,000 swimmers this year. Entries to these events cost around £80 and £180 (for the longest distance), respectively, and are organised by the same company as the canned RideLondon. Is this not quite conclusive? People just don't want to pay to ride a bike?

Hugh Brasher, CEO of London Marathon Events, says while they continue to organise cycling events such as closed-road Etape Loch Ness and open-road Tour de Mon, "organisers face an important trade off." Closed road events are safer and a better experience, but much costlier and logistically challenging.

"This is at the heart of the challenge facing mass-participation cycling events in the UK: developing event models that are safe, attractive to participants and financially sustainable, while ensuring that the impact of road closures and traffic management on host communities remains proportionate," Brasher says.

So perhaps it is less a question of the cyclist's wallet, but the race organisers'.

'I can confirm the scene is not dead.'

Thomas Hutchison began organising cycling events whilst at university, and over the past few years has gone on to run races such as the Ronde van Wymeswold and other events in the UK.

"I can confirm the scene is not dead," he says, adding that the grassroots race scene "is well and thriving, but does need significant reform and investment to continue producing opportunities for riders to develop and thrive."

By significant reform, he is referring to a rethink on how organisers work with traffic control to deliver races safely and conveniently.

Delivering a good race, in Hutchison's words, also "just takes time and effort".

"When I first started organising the East Midlands Road race, we struggled to get 20 riders to enter, but I hosted the race anyway when other organisers might have cancelled the event," he says. "I thought about what encourages women to race, even just basic things such as tampons in toilets, more information on female changing and female-only sessions. The following year, we had 40 entries; the year after, 60."

The grassroots scene may not be dead, but it is a long way from thriving.

Where is cycling in the UK heading, and where does the Grand Départ fit in?

Cycling culture looks very different today to 2014, when gravel riding, e-bikes and indoor riding platforms such as Zwift were yet to cement their place. Those that are cycling are different, too. 2025 Strava data shows cycling activities logged by women has grown by 20% since 2019, and a staggering 80% amongst Gen-Z and millennials.

But in the UK, races are being cancelled at an almost constant rate, and other signs of struggle in the bike industry point to a scene that is no longer booming in the way we thought it was in the early-mid 2010s.

In terms of exposing people to cycling, hosting the Grand Départs of both the Tour de France and Tour de France Femmes – the first time one country has ever done this – seems a very promising way to get more eyes on the sport.

The races will be broadcast live and, we have been promised, without a paywall in the UK, at least for the stages held here. But of course, the best place to be will be up close to the action. 10 million people are expected to line the route, hopefully making it the largest free-to-attend sporting event ever held in the UK.

Wide-ranging social impact is also fundamental to the legacy discussion. This starts with JOY Makers, a programme aiming to recruit 9,000 volunteers to assist with the smooth running of the event. Paul Bush OBE, Managing Director of Grand Départ GB 2027, says the scheme is "at the heart of everything we are doing", and has already seen 17,000 people apply.

"Opportunity, well-being and pride are the three key pillars of JOY, and so we want people in ten years to be looking back not only with happy memories, but also with examples of how we contributed to change and inspired people in their communities, whether that is to get physically active, ride their bikes, or to give back and get involved in events," Bush says.

The broader JOY initiative also has a Readiness to Work employability section aimed at 18 to 25-year-olds, a schools engagement programme, and efforts to encourage more girls to become active through cycling.

A letter written by cycling leaders and local authority representatives to Prime Minister Andy Burnham calling for £30 million government investment into safe cycling spaces across Britain to help cement a lasting legacy. This would build on the original Places to Ride programme, which was backed by £15 million government funding between 2019 and 2024, and generated almost £268 million in social value and an estimated £32.9 million in NHS savings. A huge focus of that programme – and one would assume of the 2027 Grand Départ equivalent – was on reaching underserved communities such as children, women, people on lower incomes and disabled people.

But what about grassroots racing?

"Grand Départ GB has the full involvement and support of British Cycling, Scottish Cycling and Beicio Cymru," Bush says, "which means that all three organisations will be doing a lot of work ahead of, and following the Grands Départs to encourage people to connect with cycling – whether by riding, supporting locally, or engaging through culture and community activity – and breaking down barriers to open the sport up for people where they are."

But if 'where you are' is a local amateur road racer hoping the Tour will reinvigorate the scene, you may feel little of the legacy statement speaks directly to you, with more of the conversation focused on participation and travel than pathways to the pro peloton.

'Directly' may be the key word here. If more people are inspired to ride on the road, it feels logical that a proportion of these will want to race, thus increasing demand for road races. Or perhaps it will encourage organisers and authorities to come together and figure out a race model that works for all? The details of what the proposed investment will be used for have yet to be finalised, so perhaps a proportion may be used to improve the amateur race scene.

2027 has the chance to be different

Sat here in 2026 and with the benefit of hindsight, it's debatable whether the legacy of the 2014 Tour de France is still felt as strongly as organisers had hoped at the time. The bullying allegations within British Cycling, doping investigations at Team Sky, the collapse of the Tour de Yorkshire and the pressures of lockdown all did their best to erode the 2014 legacy.

So where 2014 failed, why should we believe that the 2027 Grand Départ should be different? Well, there are reasons to be hopeful.

With both the men's and women's races passing through Scotland, England and Wales, and the depth of potential social impact and investment programmes, there is scope for next year's Tours to reach more people than ever before. This really does seem to be what sets it apart from previous races.

And if more people find happiness in cycling, and Brits become bigger embracers of bike culture, isn't it inevitable that a greater thriving race scene will follow?