Grande Boucle Féminine/Women's Tour de France 2009

[resal1]

Today, doing a search for results of LGBF stage, up came the following on the Bridgewater Town council agenda items for a meeting 2nd Oct 2008:
La Grande Boucle Feminine Internationale – 14, 15 & 16 June 2009
Nothing in the minutes to say what they did. Stuff about the Mayor's tea reception and things.
Looks like Boue was trying hard to make it an 8 day race, writing to various councils.

 

[Skip Madness]

Today, doing a search for results of LGBF stage, up came the following on the Bridgewater Town council agenda items for a meeting 2nd Oct 2008:
La Grande Boucle Feminine Internationale – 14, 15 & 16 June 2009
Nothing in the minutes to say what they did. Stuff about the Mayor's tea reception and things.
Looks like Boue was trying hard to make it an 8 day race, writing to various councils.

Wow! Super find, I am going to give this a good search later on and see what I can dig up.

And Bridgwater is so close to me...

 

[Skip Madness]

As well as the minutes for the Bridgwater Council report you mention, there is a similar page (similarly lacking in detail, too) on the website of Bognor Regis Council:

6. AGENDA ITEM 8. PUBLICATIONS AND CORRESPONDENCE:
...
La Grande Boucle Féminine Internationale - 14, 15 & 16 June 2009

AGENDA AND BUSINESS
...
10. To consider request from La Grande Boucle Féminine Internationale

Those are both town councils. Would it have made more sense for these requests to have gone through county councils?

Here's one of the earliest articles which I expect most have probably read from Cycling Weekly:

“We’ve been planning the British start for at least a year. We had talks with London after they hosted the Tour de France depart last year but unfortunately it didn’t happen. However the race will still start in Britain and I’ve just sent out letters to a lot of towns that might be interested in the hosting the Grand Depart and then a stage start or finish.”

“It would be good to start in Wales, close to Nicole’s home town and then head to the coast, perhaps Portsmouth or even Brighton. I’ve already talked to BBC Wales and they’re interested and Nicole has told me she will help promote the race in Britain.

I wonder which other towns and cities received these invitations and if there was any enthusiastic feedback from some of them. I also wonder what the nature of the "interest" was from BBC Wales mentioned there. A TV highlights slot, perhaps? More likely a one-off programme, something like that. Maybe even just a local news or website feature. Whichever, it's frustrating to contemplate, "What if...?" I somehow doubt that Boué will be in a rush to try this again any time soon.

 

[dellzeqq]

I think that politics has won the day. BC is still smarting from being shoved to one side by Ken and TfL; when the tour started from London - which, to be fair, happened because TfL's opinion of BC was not stratospherically high, and TfL do not share anything with anybody.

 

[resal1]

LGBF would have to be a great idea to have start in the UK. Any of Cardiff, Newport, Gloucester or Bristol and then down to the south coast. Plymouth Roscoff Brittany and down to the Pyrenees. It would have been an ideal thing for BBC Wales to have filmed with the success of Cooke. First and only individual gold Medalist since 1972 and first ever Welshwoman to win individual gold. The only other Welsh gold medalist was part of the 1912 (or around that time) GB women's swim relay. Here in Wales we get wall to wall Rugby and the adventures of Barry Town. Currently I believe Barry Town is up for sale for around £100k total. A premiership player could buy it in the small change of a week's wages ! What a crazy World.

 

[Skip Madness]

LGBF would have to be a great idea to have start in the UK. Any of Cardiff, Newport, Gloucester or Bristol and then down to the south coast.

I did e-mail Bristol City Council via the Cycle West website shortly after Bristol was granted "Cycling City" status by the government. Beyond improving cycling infrastructure in the city etc. part of the remit of becoming a Cycling City included promoting cycling to the public. I asked whether - given Boué's desire to get the Boucle moving from or around our area - they had been in touch with him or would consider doing so (making sure to mention the growth of participation and popularity of cycling here for sport and travel, much cheaper than the men's Tour, ties in with the Cycling City malarkey etc.). Maintaining the trend of so many of my cycling-related enquiries with other organisations, I got no reply.