Published July 4, 2014
By Dave Catlin
In 1987 Bradford teacher Doreen Gregory inspired me to design an educational version of Big Trak. That was Classic Roamer. Tomorrow the world’s greatest cycle race, the Tour de France starts in my home town of Leeds. The first stage takes the riders through Yorkshire Dales where I spent a lot of my youth walking and potholing. This is a heady mixture of nostalgia and homesickness mixed with some Yorkshire pudding and French joie de vivre (I never expected to see a map with à côté de Buttertubs marked on it). I had to create a somewhat personal Roamer Topical Topic.

RUG members can access the complete activity
free of charge in the Roamer Activity Library.
Roamer is very excited about the Tour de France visiting Yorkshire. So I decided to recreate Stage 1 – Le Grand Depart and see which Roamer can win the coveted yellow jersey of the race leader for Stage 2 of the race. The activity is excellent for experimenting with speed and Roamer’s speed control feature.
In a large space (hall) create a topological map of the tour. Place a target disc in each location. The tour is an elongated circle starting at Leeds and ending at Harrogate. They travel total of 118.3 miles (190.5 km) in a clockwise direction passing though:
- Leeds (start)
- Harewood
- Otley
- Ilkley
- Skipton
- Kilnsey
- Buckden
- Newbiggin
- Aysgarth
- Hawes
- Gunnerside
- Reeth
- Middleham
- Masham
- Ripon
- Ripley
- Harrogate (Finish)
Choose from the list of locations or add more if you wish and make a course for Roamer to race on. However, you must include the three hill climbs and the sprint sections:
- Côte de Cray a Category 4 Hill (between Buckden and Bishopdale aka Kidstone Pass)
- Côte de Buttertubs a Category 3 Hill (between Hawes and Gunnderside)
- Côte de Grinton Moor a Category 3 Hill (between Reeth and Middleham)
- Sprint 1 Newbiggin to Aysgarth
- Sprint 2 Ripley to Harrogate
It is said the category of the hill climb comes from the gear the support cars need to be in to climb to the top.
The race begins with the Grand Depart between Leeds and Harewood House, where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will cut the ribbon to begin the 2014 Tour de France. Riders will then speed up, but there’s a long way to go, so most of them will be travelling in at moderate speed in the mass of cyclists called the peloton. There are two sections where the riders will sprint as fast as they can. The first of these occurs just after Côte de Cray between Newbiggin and Aysgarth. The second sprint section is the race to the finish between Ripley and Harrogate.
Roamer Speed Command
The Infant K-1 Roamer introduces the speed command. You have 3 options:
The Primary and Junior Roamer has a more general.
Activity 1
The tour sets of down the Headrow from Leeds Town Hall on the 5th July. It finishes 21 stages and 2,277 miles later on the 27th July on the Champs-Élysées in Paris
Devise and run an experiment to test the different speeds of the Roamer.
Activity 2
Write an algorithm, then a program to take the Roamer round around Stage 1 of the Tour de France, changing the speed for the Grand Depart, the normal cycling, the hill climbs and the sprints.
Activity 3
Learn and use some French words as you send “le Voyageur se rend sur le parcours!”
- A list of French cycling terms
- For a bit of fun – Yorkshire/English and French dictionary
Resources
How to Set Up a Roamer Course
Yorkshire Cycling Heroes

- Gordon (Tiny) Thomas: (1921 – 2013) born in Shipley won a silver medal in the team road and the 1953 Tour of Britain.
- Barry Hoban: born 1940 in Wakefield, was the first British cyclist to win a stage of the Tour de France. He went on to win a British record of a further seven and still holds the record for the most tours held the record for the most stage wins in the Tour de France by a British rider, winning eight between 1967 and 1975. He holds the record of 11 completed Tours – the most by a British rider – He was also the only Briton to have won two consecutive stages of the Tour until Mark Cavendish matched it in 2008.
- Aurthur Metcalf Leeds, (1938 – 2002) born in Leeds is the only rider to win the British road race championship and the British Best All-Rounder time trial competition in the same year
- Beryl Burton OBE (1937 – 1996) won more than 90 domestic championships and seven world titles. She set numerous national records including a women’s record for the 12-hour time-trial which exceeded the men’s record for two years
- Lizzie Armistead: born in 1998 in Otley: won a total of five medals at the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in 2009 and 2010. She won Britain’s first medal in the 2012 London Olympics getting the silver medal in the road race.
Yorkshire Cycling Traditions
This picture from the Catlin family archives shows members of a Leeds Cycle Club in the 1930s. Cycling enable working class teenagers to get out of the industrial cities of Leeds and Bradford into the Yorkshire Dales. This picture is taken in the village of Grassington.

The Peloton
Scooting through Ilkley – everyone with a hat on!


In these two maps distance and directions between the locations have changed, but their topological information is the same.
A topological map provides basic information about the relationship between locations. Harry Beck's London Underground map is the most famous example. Toplology is a branch of mathematics.
Yorkshire
|
English
|
French
|
‘appen
|
perhaps
|
peut-être
|
Ay up
|
Hello
|
Bonjour
|
‘eck
|
hell
|
enfer
|
allus
|
always
|
toujours
|
beck
|
stream , brook
|
courant
|
britches
|
trousers, knickers
|
pantalon
|
champion
|
excellent
|
excellent
|
chuffed
|
Pleased, happy
|
heureux
|
Clemmed
|
Thirsty
|
assoiffé
|
Eee by gum
|
Oh my god
|
Mon dieu
|
faffin’
|
messing about
|
embêter
|
flaggin’
|
getting tired
|
fatigant
|
flummox
|
confuse, puzzle
|
fatigant
|
gradley
|
grand
|
embrouiller
|
How’s tha doin
|
How are you
|
comment allez-vous
|
middlin’
|
moderate, average
|
modéré
|
nobbut
|
only
|
seulement
|
nowt
|
nothing
|
rien
|
'ow do
|
How are you
|
comment allez-vous
|
puddled
|
Confused, mad
|
Embrouillé, fou
|
real
|
good or outstanding
|
exceptionnel
|
reckon
|
think
|
penser
|
reight
|
very
|
très
|
sup up
|
drink up
|
boire
|
Roamer can support Early Years to High School teachers across most subjects. It flexibility makes it useful in formal and informal learning; it works with gifted, remedial or special education. Check through the examples and see how might help you.
Learning French
Here are some French words used in connection with the race. Choose between 5 and 10 of them. Get the students to use them in the context of the activity.
un commissaire referee who travels by car
un coureur rider, cyclist
un cycliste rider, cyclist
un directeur sportif manager
un domestique support rider
un échappé breakaway
une équipe team
un peloton pack, bunch
un poursuivant chaser
un sprinteur sprinter
la tête de course leader
un bidon water bottle
un casque helmet
un maillot jersey
un pneu tire
un pneu crevé flat tire
une roue wheel
un vélo de course racing bike
une côte hill, slope
une course race
une course par étapes stage race
une descente downward slope
un parcours route, course
la bonification bonus points
une chute fall, crash
la lanterne rouge last rider
le maillot à pois polka dot jersey (worn by best climber)
le maillot blanc white jersey (worn by best rider under 25)
le maillot jaune yellow jersey (worn by overall leader)
le maillot vert green jersey (worn by leader in points / best sprinter)
courir to ride
dépasser to overtake
grimper to climb
prendre la tête to take the lead
How to Set Up a Roamer Course
Use Roamer to set up your course:
- Enter a program that will make Roamer travel the course
- Have your landing discs ready
- Send Roamer on the course
- Place the landing discs in the appropriate places