The third edition of the Tour de Yorkshire returns to the county chosen to host the 2019 UCI Road World Championships on Friday 28 April.

Some of the best road teams in the world will take to the hills, valleys and coastline of Yorkshire over three days and 490km of racing to determine who will come out on top.

In addition, leading teams from the UCI Women’s WorldTour will be in attendance to contest the Saturday stage in front of crowds of millions.

The teams

Tour de Yorkshire

18 teams will line up in Bridlington on Friday, with Olympians and world champions in their number.

The Great Britain Cycling Team will include national circuit race champion Chris Lawless, under-23 Gent Wevelgem winner Jacob Hennessy and a number of the Senior Academy endurance squad, who will be taking to the road after a long and successful winter on the track.

Team Sky will field a team featuring their latest home-grown recruits; Rio gold-medallist Owain Doull and 2016 points race world champion Jon Dibben.

The race will also feature big-name riders such as Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis Solutions Credits team), one of the world’s top sprinters who has five Grand Tour stage wins to his name and has already claimed the Nokere Koerse and Paris–Camembert titles this season.

Fellow star sprinter Caleb Ewan will lead the Orica-Scott charge in a squad that also includes 2016 Paris-Roubaix winner Mathew Hayman.

Other world tour teams hitting the roads of Yorkshire will include BMC Racing Team, Orica-Scott, and Dimension Data, as well as UCI Continental teams BIKE Channel Canyon, ONE Pro Cycling, JLT Condor, Madison Genesis, and Raleigh GAC.

Asda Women’s Tour de Yorkshire

Lizzie Deignan will return to her Yorkshire roots once more with her WorldTour team Boels-Dolmans, in a squad that will also feature the 2016 Olympic champion in the women’s road race, Anna van Der Breggen.

Heading back to the UK now for a week of book signings etc and then the TDY, excited to show my team mates my home #YORKSHIRE

— Lizzie Deignan (@lizziedeignan) April 23, 2017

National road race champion Hannah Barnes will also be on the start line in Tadcaster, with her team Canyon-SRAM and will be hoping to continue her winning form on British soil.

Fresh from the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Hong Kong, former Tour de Yorkshire-winner Kirsten Wild (Cylance Pro Cycling) and two-time road race world champion Giorgina Bronzini (Wiggle High5) will make their return to the road after international duty in the velodrome.

Dame Sarah Storey’s new team, Storey Racing, will make their Tour de Yorkshire debut, in an incredibly high-quality field, that should make for a fantastic day’s racing.

The stages

Bridlington to Scarborough - 173km - Friday 28 April

The race will start in Bridlington, the coastal host to the first ever Tour de Yorkshire stage in 2015.

The peloton will make their way onto a loop of the East Riding, taking in the towns of Driffield and Pocklington which will feature the first intermediate sprint of the Tour, as well as Malton and Whitby before heading up the Cote de Robin Hood’s Bay and finishing with a sprint in the seaside town of Scarborough.

Whether the riders sample the famous fish and chips ahead of the second stage remains to be seen!

Tadcaster to Harrogate - 122.5km - Saturday 29 April

The women’s race will start the proceedings on Saturday morning, with the men’s race getting underway in the afternoon.

Starting on the newly reopened Tadcaster Bridge, teams will face an intermediate sprint in Knaresborough followed by the day’s sole categorised climb on the Cote de Lofthouse before the descent into Masham.

On a course that will best suit the sprinters, the race will take in a second intermediate sprint in Ripon, before passing the world-famous Fountains Abbey on a fast approach to Harrogate, where the stage will finish on Parliament Street, as did the opening stage of the 2014 Tour de France.

Bradford to Fox Valley, Sheffield - 194.5km - Sunday 30 April

Over 3,500 metres of climbing will separate the teams from the finish line on the final and toughest stage of the 2017 Tour.

Eight categorised climbs will quickly separate the hills experts from the peloton and, after two days favouring the sprinters, leave the general classification wide open.

The first of those climbs comes after the race reaches Skipton, with the infamous cobbled climb of the Cote de Shibden Wall.

The race then traverses from West to South Yorkshire and into Penistone with another sprint in Stocksbridge before the riders embark on a torturous 22km finishing circuit that features no less than four categorised climbs before the race finally reaches its climax at Fox Valley in Sheffield.

How to follow

• ITV4 are showing the races live, as well as highlights the same evening.
  Friday 28 April
  Live: 12:30pm - 5:15pm, Highlights: 7pm - 8pm
  Saturday 29 April
  Live: Asda TDY Women's Race: 9am - 12:45pm, Live: 2pm - 5.15pm, Highlights: 7pm - 8pm
  Sunday 30 April
  Live: 12pm - 5:30pm, Highlights: 7pm - 8pm

• Report and galleries on the British Cycling website

• Follow @BritishCycling on twitter for updates throughout the races