Tour De France Comes to Essex

This week the sport of cycling has been in the news for all the wrong reasons following the Lance Armstrong confession on Oprah Winfrey to doping in all of his seven Tour De France wins.

With Briton's Bradley Wiggins the current Tour De France champion and the success of the British cycling team at London 2012, never has there more interest in the sport.

These revelations have somewhat overshadowed  the announcement this week that the 2014 Tour De France, road cycling's premier event, returns to Britain for the first time since 2007 but more importantly it will also be passing through Essex.

On Monday 7th July 2014, Stage 3 of the Tour De France will go fro Cambridge to London, which will snake south through Essex, east of the M11. It will pass close to Great Abington - around 10 miles from Haverhill - before working its way past Saffron Walden, Takeley, Epping and onto the Olympic Park and central London. Click on the map above for the full route.

After the Olympic Mountain Bike event was held at Hadleigh Farm, it is a welcome boost for the county that the leading world cycling race will be coming to Essex.