Wiggins to ride Tour de Yorkshire

The four-time Olympic champion will launch Team Wiggins into competition at the Tour de Yorkshire from May 1-3.

It will mark a belated appearance on the county’s roads for British cycling’s biggest name, who was controversially omitted from Team Sky’s squad for last summer’s 2014 Tour de France.

That decision deprived the great Yorkshire public of the chance to cheer on one of British sport’s cult heroes.

This year, though, Wiggins will depart with the peloton from Bridlington on Friday, May 1, on a three-day odyssey across the White Rose county which finishes in Leeds on Sunday, May 3.

Wiggins will wear the rainbow jersey of the world time-trial champion, just as he is this week in the Paris-Nice stage race.

“I know I’m doing Tour de Yorkshire,” said Wiggins, who will leave Sky at the end of April, during an interview in France.

Team Wiggins is a squad designed to help the development of young British riders.

They will line up in the Tour de Yorkshire alongside established World Tour teams such as Sky, Giant-Alpecin, BMC Racing and Orica GreenEdge, who have already expressed an interest in contesting the inaugural race.