THE Tour of Britain is a giant rolling circus, needing more than 500 staff and a fleet of vehicles to everything moving during the week long race.

The week-long circus arrives in Scunthorpe at 4.30am on Saturday for the opening stage of the contest and it will have moved on again to the second stage start at Darlington by 1pm the same day.

Route director Graham Jones has been planning the route for months and will be on hand on the morning of the race to make sure everything is in place.

A fleet of police outriders and Army security will then be on hand to make sure the whole event runs like clockwork.

Mr Jones said: "The Tour works in three separate sections that hardly ever bump into one another.

"The start crew turn up on the morning. They set up and rig up. And as soon as the race is gone they are de-rigging and they are gone within about two hours.

"We have got about 10 vans which are on the route that have to put up all the arrows and signs.

"And then there's the finish crew."

Making sure the route is properly set up is vital because the competitors have not got genuine chance of learning the route of any given stage.

Professional cyclists are on the road for up to 10 months of the year and will often arrive at a stage with just hours notice - and the Scunthorpe to York stage spends 107-miles winding its way through rural and urban settings.

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