COMMUNITIES along the route of the Tour de Yorkshire are preparing to welcome the race to the Bradford district tomorrow.

In Silsden, residents are renaming one of their streets after top cyclist Bradley Wiggins.

A sign for Bradley Road will see the addition of ‘Wiggins’ as the cyclists race through the town tomorrow afternoon.

Elsewhere on the local section of the route, there will be a beer festival in one of Keighley’s smallest hamlets.

The Turkey Inn will hold the event to celebrate the inauguration of the ‘Cote De Goose Eye’ as one of the race’s most gruelling climbs.

Thousands of people are expected to line the streets of local villages as the first ever Tour de Yorkshire – organised to build on the success of last year’s Tour de France.

The cyclists will ride from Hebden Bridge through Oxenhope, Haworth, Oakworth, Goose Eye, Sutton, Cross Hills, Kildwick and Silsden, before heading off to Addingham, Ilkley, Menston and Otley Chevin.

Yesterday's start to the race proved a brutal one as two of the star names in the field were forced to abandon before the end of stage one.

Team Sky's Ben Swift, of Rotherham, one of the race favourites, was caught in a major crash on a wet section of road in the North Yorkshire Moors which ripped apart the peloton, while German sprinter Marcel Kittel had already climbed off, unable to keep up in his first race back after illness.

Sir Bradley Wiggins was doing his best to stay safe, riding steadily towards the rear of the pack.