So on Sunday I was luck enough to be a part of the Tour De Yorkshire all thanks to a Twitter competition I won, ran by Welcome to Yorkshire. I had been briefed on what was happening on the day but the whole experience was a whole lot more than I could have ever of expected.

I was advised I needed to be in Wakefield for 10am to collect my acceditation and gain access to the VIP area. Naturally I got up early and made sure I was in plenty of time (quite lucky due to the horrendous weather on the M62). I arrived in a bleak and rainy Wakefield where the city was being transformed ready for the start.

I wandered around for a bit and then came back to collect my accreditation from the ASO team who then directed me over to the VIP area where a full cooked breakfast and some nice hot coffee made up for the weather outside. I flicked through the racebook and learnt a bit more about stage 3 and what to expect, whilst chatting to some of the other guests.

Around 11am I was asked to go back to the start to be introduced to my driver for the day, who turned out to be Dan Frost, Olympic gold medallist and former directeur sportif for Team Sky.

Dan runs a number of cycling tours in Europe which you can find out more about at http://dan-frost.com/

Dan started to explain a little bit about the day and what was going to happen on the day. We had a walk down to where all the teams were and he pulled a few strings to get me in to the Team Sky camp and meet a few of the riders, along with showing me some of the racing bikes up close. It was interesting to see how meticulous each rider was in terms of the set up of their bikes marked out on pieces of laminated card stuck to the bike.

We headed back to the car and met up with Marc & Vanessa who were also in the car. The race started with a loop of Wakefield in non race conditions to greet the crowds, this was when I first realised how lucky I was to be in the position that I was in. The streets were packed with people waving flags, ringing cowbells and generally making lots of noise.

I could walk you through the whole race, but I think the post would be rather epic and long winded as we were in the car for well over 4 hours. I took a Go Pro camera and caught quite a bit of footage which you can find in the video at the bottom.

I just want to finish by saying a huge thanks to Tom and Pete from Yorkshire.com who helped in the run up to the day, Elise and her team at ASO who looked after me for the day, Dan for a truly epic journey (including grabbing a Team Sky feed bag at one of the feeding stations) and the rest of the team that put on this event. This was definitely a ‘money can’t buy’ experience that will stay with me for the rest of my life. If you haven’t experienced it, then be sure to get involved in the event when I am sure it will return in 2016.