Five of these were UCI WorldTeams; six were UCI Professional Continental teams; six were UCI Continental teams; one was the Great Britain national team. Teams could enter between five and eight riders. Fourteen teams selected eight riders and four teams selected seven; 140 riders were therefore entered into the race. One rider (Caleb Fairly of ) pulled out before the start, so the race began with a peloton of 139 riders. Much of the pre-race media focused on the presence of Bradley Wiggins, Britain's first ever winner of the Tour de France, who was riding his first race for his new team, . Wiggins was controversially not selected for in the previous year's Tour de France; the race organisers expected his presence in the Tour de Yorkshire to be one of the principal attractions for British cycling fans. Wiggins was not, however, expected to attempt to win the overall classification in the race; his main objective was preparing for his hour record attempt in June. "Cycling Weekly" expected that the race would be dominated by "punchy all-rounders". The riders expected to perform strongly over the three days included Ben Swift (), Moreno Hofland and Steven Kruijswijk (both ), Greg Van Avermaet (), Thomas Voeckler () and Erick Rowsell (). The second stage appeared most likely to end in a sprint, with Marcel Kittel () the favourite to take victory, although he had suffered an illness and had not raced since the Tour of Qatar in February. Other prominent sprinters included Swift and Hofland, as well as Matteo Pelucchi (), Rick Zabel (), Gerald Ciolek () and Steele Von Hoff ().  1 May — Bridlington to Scarborough,  The first stage of the race began in Bridlington on the North Sea coast. The riders first travelled north-east to Flamborough, where they turned to the north-west. Initially this kept them along the coast, but soon took them into the North York Moors, where the first climb was the Côte de Dalby Forest. This came after ; the categorised portion of the climb was at 8.9%. The riders then turned to the south-west and descended to Pickering, where the first intermediate sprint was positioned. The route turned north, back onto the Moors, where they reached the Côte de Rosedale Abbey after . This was the longest climb of the day: at 7%. The riders continued north as far as Castleton, where they turned east.