[Blog] Missing the 2019 Road World Championships in Yorkshire
There was a time when I could attend races in Yorkshire. I spectated at races. I worked on races. I marshaled races. I covered races as a journalist. Hell, I even drank a ton of wine and made this terrible video at the 2008 East Yorkshire Classic just because I had nothing better to do that weekend:
But something happened. An ancient curse was awoken some time in the late 2000s. From that moment, any Yorkshire bike race I was looking forward to was destined to end in disappointment.
2007 British National Championships
I was supposed to be broadcasting this one. Like, producing it. With a team of cameramen on motorcycles, and a helicopter in the sky. I was 22, so that was… daunting.
A few days before the event, I got a random phone call from somebody in Hull who, like everybody who’s ever ridden a bike in Yorkshire, claimed to know my grandfather. This person demanded that I call British Cycling to find out whether the race was going ahead. It was the early, early morning time of 10:30am and I’d just arrived at work, so I mumbled something and hung up.
Before I had the chance to even think of an excuse for not calling British Cycling, our head of production stopped by and told me I’d need a boat for the weekend. Beverley was underwater. A few minutes later, British Cycling emailed to confirm that the route was indeed flooded: the National Championships were canceled.
This wouldn’t be the last time that my attempts to produce a race broadcast would fail due to extenuating circumstances. But it was the first time and I sadly didn’t get to stamp my Bela Tarr-inspired authority on the live coverage that day. In the end, maybe it was a narrow escape for the 15 people who would’ve watched our TV coverage anyway.
2014 Tour de France Grand Depart
In 2013, I moved to the United States. Before that, I quit my job at Cycling.TV at the start of September, gave away all my possessions, then spent a month on the side of a mountain in Yorkshire, hiking, drinking beer, and smoking cigars while scouting the Tour de France route.
In July 2014, I flew back pumped for the race. I ate a pie in Skipton and wandered around the Castle. Then I went to our cottage in Grassington, became enveloped in a cold sweat, and vomited my entire bodyweight into an ancient toilet not designed for anywhere near that amount of bodily fluid.
Threshfield. I didn’t see the race here. 
Hawes. I missed the race here too. 
Me, not seeing the race. Also holding back vomit. 
Skipton Castle. Great place to not see a race. 
Me, planning my TdF spectating in 2013. 
Spectator hub. Not for me, because I missed the race.
A couple of friends arrived that evening for a barbecue, while I was in round two of vomit and round one of diarrhea. They stayed just long enough to get infected too (and later pass it onto their parents). I entered a fugue state in a sweaty bed, intermittently waking up to gamble on which end of my body to position over a toilet bowl or bucket.
The Grand Depart finally arrived in Yorkshire, truly a once in a lifetime experience. I spent it rolling around on the floor of a 17th-century cottage defecating, with the race passing by just 100 meters away.
2019 Road World Championships
The World Championships in Yorkshire was my chance to make amends for missing Yorkshire’s Tour de France Grand Depart. The whole Dalton clan was about to descend on North Yorkshire for the race, coming all the way from the US, Australia, and… the East Riding.
A family reunion was planned and I was added to a hilariously confusing multigenerational Facebook group chat. Various iterations of dinner plans were made and then remade until everybody was happy (or at least no longer complaining). It was becoming quite the production.
And then I got some big news. My wife was pregnant… and the due date was September 20, right when the Worlds were happening. I gleefully left the family group chat, and much more reluctantly canceled my flights to Yorkshire.
As it happened, the extreme weather scuppered everyone’s plans. My family had to move from their planned spot due to the various road closures, then only managed to catch a single lap of the finish loop before abandoning for a warmer, dryer environment. So maybe it was for the best that I didn’t even fly out there this time anyway. And my baby beats any bike race in the world.
The 2019 Worlds combined the flooding of 2007 with the defecation and vomiting of 2014 (thankfully, this time just from my baby). The next major Yorkshire race will need to come up with a new trick or, hopefully, just let me finally enjoy it with no surprises.