The route of the 2014 Tour de France, which begins in Yorkshire will skim parts of East Lancashire it was confirmed this morning. The 2014 Tour de France includes five mountain finishes and just one individual time-trial.

The Grand Depart is due to take place on the 5th of July in Leeds before moving through Skipton, Kettlewell, Thwaite and ending in Harrogate.

The second stage of the race will set off from York on the 6th of July and will come within miles of Pendle as it passes through Keighley and Hebden Bridge before ending in Sheffield.

The Tour will then move to Cambridge and London for the third stage before transferring across the Channel.

There was good and bad news for Chris Froome, the defending champion, as the Tour returns to the site of his first stage victory, La Planche des Belles Filles, but first negotiates nine sections of cobbles on stage five in northern France.