SO – what to look forward to next then? Don’t know about you but I’ve been feeling a bit flat for the past week.

After the equivalent of half the population of Yorkshire turned out to watch a couple of hundred blokes speed by on bikes in a ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss-it’ sort of way, life has returned to a mundane ordinariness that belies how we let our collective hair down and had a bit of a wild time when the Tour de France came to town.

Wasn’t it brilliant? Wasn’t it stupefyingly incredible to see Yorkshire’s hills disappear under a carpet of people? How gulp-inducing was it to see thousands upon thousands turning out to watch a cycle race?

How proud - but if truth be told a little smug - did we all feel (because let’s face it we know where we live is pretty special) when we heard commentators exclaim in continuing wonder at the grand spectacle the folk of Yorkshire put on, never mind the organisers of the Tour de France?

It was a win-win all round. From the day Gary Verity stuck his stubborn Yorkshire neck out - hacking off some politico idiots in the process I’m delighted to say - and put in the bid to get the Tour de France to come here, it was going to be something special.

And when Yorkshire cocked the proverbial snook by actually winning the bid while everyone else thought it was a foregone conclusion that if Le Tour really did come over the Channel it would be Scotland doing the honours, what a brilliant feeling that was.

Because let’s face it, there were those who thought us flat-cap Yorkies were more interested in our whippets, keeping coal in the bath and ferrets up our trouser legs than being big enough, canny enough, and organising enough to welcome the world’s biggest spectator sporting event.

Yes, there were those within the borders of the White Rose who were singularly unimpressed that Le Tour was coming, and that was their prerogative. And there were others who, while welcoming the Verity coup, were fearful it would cause organisational carnage, with road closure chaos, the ill, the old and the infirm becoming trapped in their homes, babies being born on bathroom floors because ambulances couldn’t get through, town centres becoming land-locked Marie-Celestes because no one could get to work, and shops staying shut or where they did open, being swept clear of everything on their shelves.

In the long build-up there were unseemly rows about money, carping about police leave being cancelled (but not from police officers themselves it would seem), wise men shaking their heads over the number of potholes to be filled, and a handful of disgruntled but blinkered pub landlords moaning about their regulars not being able to fight their way to their usual lean-to on the bar, rather than thinking outside the beer barrel and seizing the opportunity to open up their hostelries to thirsty and hungry roadside revellers.

But amazingly, incredibly – or maybe not so, given the way our local authorities and businesses pulled together to make this thing happen, and happen brilliantly well – the naysayers didn’t have their ‘I-told-you-so’ day.

Yes, there was a handful of casualties but thankfully nothing too serious, and there were quite legitimate fears from the riders about spectators getting in the way in their exuberance, but nowhere in the past week have I seen or read, or watched, or listened to anything anywhere about best-laid plans going bosoms-up, the police wading in to arrest errant boozed-up bystanders, people being trapped behind closed doors and fenced off streets, and criminals having a thieving field day while the backs of millions were turned.

The whole weekend was a glorious, peacefully riotous goodwill fest, an amazing bringing together of millions who just wanted to be part of it, whether they were keen cyclists, families having a grand day out, mates having a bit of a craic or visitors to our shores and more specifically our county who wanted to join with us in seeing history being made.

And what I can’t get over is that it was all for 198 men riding push bikes. Each rider had the equivalent of some 12,626 people rooting for him – depending on which crowd estimates you choose – which, regardless, say an awful lot about the power of the Tour de France machine.

But for me, it says so very much more about the power of the Yorkshire people. And because of them, plus the hills, the vales, the dales and moors we’re all custodians of I am so, so incredibly proud to call this place home…