Sir, – With regard to the article, A triumph, now let’s reap the rewards (D&S Weekend, July 18), am I alone in my shock at reading what Susan Briggs, head of Dales Tourism Business Network, had to say? The “massive amounts of goodwill towards Yorkshire and the Yorkshire Dales” that she talks of, may well be cancelled out by one of her following statements. “We want less fit visitors.”

How insulting.

She is quoted as having said “cyclists tend to whizz through. We want less fit visitors; the ones that stop off at the pub and come with some friends, walk around enjoying the scenery and stay in a B&B a few nights.”

Just how many assumptions does she make in this paragraph? Can we assume that: all cyclists are very fast elite racing cyclists? All cyclists are fit? Cyclists don’t stop at pubs?

Cyclists don’t bring their friends, or stop at B&Bs, or enjoy the scenery?

Can we also assume that visitors who aren’t cyclists aren’t fit? Fit visitors don’t stop at pubs? Or for that matter, that less fit visitors do all of the things mentioned in her paragraph? No, of course we can’t.

I’m not sure this was the message Susan Briggs intended to give out to the public, but that is how it reads to me. Maybe the title of the weekend article should have read: All you less fit visitors, Yorkshire wants you and your money.

Good PR? I don’t think so.

V WYNCOLL Redmire.