Today is the start of the Tour-after-Yorkshire with the riders racing from Cambridge to the Mall in London.

As soon as they finish, the riders will make for the airport and the support vehicles to Dover as the Tour goes home to France.

They will have a quiet stage to Lille before hitting the dreaded cobblestones of Stage Five, from Ypres to Arenberg Porte du Hainaut. This stage commemorates the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War.

There will be no more high hills until Saturday’s Stage Eight in the Vosges and the first summit finish on Monday will be one Chris Froome knows well - he won at La Planche des Belles Filles in 2012. It will be followed by the first rest day a week tomorrow.

There will be two stages in the Alps - stage 13 and 14 - and three in the Pyrenees culminating in the haute categorie or “too steep to categorise” climb of Hautcam in stage 18 on Thursday July 24.

Stage 20 on Saturday July 26 will be the only time trial of this year’s Tour - a 54 kilometre journey from Bergerac to Perigueux which could either see a shootout between the top riders, or if the yellow jersey has too great a lead, a chance for him to cement his win before the grand finale in Paris on Sunday July 27, when for only the second time, the peloton will circumnavigate the Arc de Triomphe.