le Tour de France:
the greatest show on Earth

2010 tour de france route announced

The 2010 Tour de France will start at Rotterdam with a short individual against-the-clock through eight kilometres of the city home to the biggest port in Europe. The next day, the Tour races from the Netherlands to Belgium, then from Belgium to France;

The third stage, from Belgium to France, Wanze-Arenberg to Porte du Hainaut, will have 13.2 km of cobbled (pavé) road, with three sections in Belgium (2.2km) and a further four in France (11km). Anyone who has watched the annual Paris-Roubaix race will appreciate what a bone-shaking experience it is. Mind you, for the Tour de France it should be somewhet easier, the race being in warm and probably dry Summer, instead of wet and wild Spring.

The 2010 race will include nine stages on the flat, six mountain stages with three finishes on a summit and one individual against-the clock of 51 km. There will be two rest days and tewnty-three climbs of either category 2, cat. 1 or hors catégorie (unclassifiable).

The famous, and often dreaded, Col du Tourmalet will feature twice, once as the Tour goes over it, and the next day when the stage will end at its 2115 metre summit.

It is clear that the global financial collapse has hit the Tour de France, with the number of expensive mountain stages reduced, one even being used twice, and only one real against-the-clock stage. Instead, the organisers are trying to offer other cycling excitement with seven sections of cobbled road and twice using the daunting Col de Tourmalet, including for a stage finish. A further novelty, unusually for the Tour de France, more mountains in the Pyrénees than the Alps.

the stages for 2010

There will be a prologue [short opening stage] and 20 stages, with six mountain stages [Alps 2, Pyrenees 4], two medium mountain stages, and one individual against-the-clock [contre-le-montre] time trial. The first days prologue is also a short individual against-the-clock [contre-le-montre] time trial. There are 2 rest days. All other days are ‘on the plain’ - relatively flat days, almost touring through France. The total distance ridden will be about 3,600 kilometres, or roughly 2 237 miles.

last year (2009): the first ten riders

the teams

the prizes

• The winner of a day’s stage wins 8,000 euro
• The yellow jersey winner - fastest time overall in the general time classification: 450,000 euro
• The green jersey winner - winning the most points. Points are given to winners of intermediate and final sprint on each stage: 25,000 euro
• The spotted jersey winner - best mountain climber, winning mountain points when going over summits and intermediate difficulties: 25,000 euro
• The white jersey winner - best under 25 y.o. in the general time classification: 20,000 euro.
• Combativity prize - chosen by a specialist cycling jury: 20,000 euro
• Best team by time - lowest time after adding together the times of the three best members of each team at each stage: 50,000 euro.]
• For the mountain stages, if the last climb is classed as 2nd or 1st difficulty, or out of classification [hors catégorie] the points for that last ascent are doubled.
• For every stage except the individual against-the-clocks, the three first riders of the intermediary sprints gain 6,4 and 2 seconds respectively, while the first three arrivals for each stage gain 20,12 and 8 seconds respectively. [There are three intermediate sprints on flat stages, 2 sprints on other stages.]
  
  
• For details of all prizes, see the 2009 Tour de France regulations [27-page .pdf], from section 1:13 to 1:28.

For more on the tactics of racing in the Tour de France.

last year (2008): the first thirty riders

The final day, by Xavier:
The last stage, on the final Sunday, is a stage of two, three, or is it four parts?

First comes a jolly afternoon ride through French countryside. Arch Tour rivals start to chatter, teams ride in formation - not in Indian file - but as a most un-aerodynamic array, in line across the road. The whole peleton is together - no break-aways, no competition, after all this is a travelling party celebrating a job well done. The team director will crack open a bottle or two of bubbly, and everyone will be toasting each other as they ride along. Even TV motorcyclists will join in, particularly the past spotty jersey multi-winner, now reporter - Laurent Jalabert : JaJa the Panda.

This socialising and partying continues as the peleton enters into Paris. Landmarks start to be recognisable, is that the TV Channel 2 building going past, the Eiffel Tower? Now, the champagne flutes are returned to the team cars and the riders start to settle down to the work of the last day. Up and down the cobbled Champs d’Elysée they go, round the Arch de Triumph and down the other end, to go round the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde, past the seried lines of Norbert Dentressangle trucks, transporting the Tour - Norbert! (Norberts are now official suppliers to the Tour de France until 2013.)

The tension starts to build as each of the eight or ten laps are made, and then it happens. The final lap has been made and.... pow, they’re off for the final crazy dash, the sprint to the finish that will determine the overall winners of the stage, the green points jersey and, maybe one day, the overall winner of this year’s Tour de France.

The last evolution of the day is the final podium. Bouquets are held high, while the attendant colour-coordinated girls appear to be sniffing the cyclists’ underarms, much shaking of hands with public worthies, bestowing of medals, national anthems, the now traditional display by the winning cyclists of their very sweet young children, suitably dressed in green, or red and white, or yellow cycling grab.

some history

The first Tour de France took place in 1903, with a first stage from Montgeron to Lyon, lasting an overwhelming 467 kilometres. There were six stages. The first Tour was 2,428 kilometers long and the prize was 6,075 francs.

watching TDF broadcasts

2008: [Note that several links are to pages in French, but are often fairly intuitive.]

This year, 92 TV channels will broadcast the Tour de France in 180 countries, of which 168 will provide live coverage of the race.

• The Tour de France website, www.letour.fr, now has its own YouTube channel, where you can watch many Tour-related videos.
  
  
• Live streaming broadcasts on the Net linked from the Tour de France website. This page also lists many live video links. Note that these live streaming broadcasts, when you find them from the links, often are not free. For instance, France 2 is charging continuous 2 hours: 1.69 euro, day package: 2.99 euro, week package: 14.99 euro, complete Tour: 24.99 euro.
  
  
• In Europe, as well as the French coverage, British Eurosport provides live broadcasts [schedules page].
  
  
• France 2 will show the day’s stage from about 14:25hr onwards [2.25 p.m. - 1 hour ahead of UK time, 2 hours ahead of UT/GMT]. France 3 shows the day’s stage during the morning. In essence, if you cannot find the live Tour broadcast on one of these channels, it is probably being shown on the other one.
  
  
• In the USA, Versus will be carrying daily coverage [daily video]:

  “[...] the network will, on average, air 14 hours of race action per day. Daily coverage includes a pre-race show followed by live morning race coverage, race action replays four times daily and an expanded primetime show. During the key mountain stages VERSUS will provide extended coverage beginning, some days, at 6:30 a.m. ET. Start times will vary depending on stages and rest days; a complete schedule is available at VERSUS.com.”

As well as the traditional 625-line broadcasts, from 2007, there will also be broadcasts in Full HD (High Definition - 1080 lines) for those who have the new HD televisions ( HD Ready televisions - 720 lines -can also benefit from the better image quality). However, the HD broadcasts will only be available to viewers in France using the TNT system, those with a broadband [ADSL] HD subscription or those subscribing to Canal Satellite. British Eurosport Live also has an HD service.

Online information can be found at the Tour de France site, of course. Other independent online sources are Eurosport and l’Equipe [in French].

google street views of the TDF

This year, the French Google web site is joining in with the greatest show on Earth.

French Google is offering Street Views of the complete Tour de France, stage by stage. Google France has filmed along the complete Tour de France route, together with some nearby roads. As Google points out, even if you cannot make it to watch the Tour, this way you can look at the route and see a cyclists’ eye view of each day’s stage [click and hold, then dragging to right or left moves the picture orientation, dragging up or down gives views with more sky or more ground].

Go to French Google Maps and click on the Street View button, twenty-one camera icons marking each stage appear connected by blue route lines.

Use the zoom bar on the left of the Google Map to enlarge a blue Tour Stage route between two camera icons. You can follow the Tour de France race route from end to end, yard by yard. [These are not webcams showing the actual race, they merely provide images of the race route.]

The image above shows the view along the Champs-Elysées, part of the race route for the final day (27th July). You can lift and move (using your mouse pointer) the yellow man to change what part of the route is being viewed, or you can point to the roads highlighted in blue for the same purpose.
Double-click on a part of the image to enlarge it, and click on the “zoom arrière” box to return to the standard size.
Click on the white direction arrows to make the image ‘move along’ the road.

(There is an online video of how to access and use Street Views for the Tour de France, however, it is in French.)

You can also see the Tour de France Stage routes in Google Earth [you will need to have already installed Google Earth].

background art to the Tour

I have been trying to get round to doing a section illustrating another part of the fun of the Tour. Everywhere that you go on the Tour route, in among the banners and other festivities, you will see installations by farmers, school children, local villages, trade organisations and individuals. I hope to collect these together. The best way to give you a flavour is to collect a picture gallery.

Welcoming guardian, with Occitan flag, at the entrance to Bastanes village, 2007

Two of an avenue of bike decorations at Orthez, 2007

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france

new :

France’s western isles: Ile de Ré

on first arriving in France - driving

France is not England

Marianne - a French national symbol, with French definitive stamps

the calendar of the French Revolution

the 6th bridge at Rouen: Pont Gustave Flaubert,
new vertical lift bridge

Futuroscope

Vulcania

the French umbrella & Aurillac

cathedrale saint-jean-baptiste de lyon

from Lyon to Switzerland and Italy - motorway aires on the A42 and A40

after the whirlwind, in les landes  

the forest as seen by francois mauriac, and today

places and playtime

roundabout art of Les Landes

50 years old: Citroën DS

the Citroën 2CV:
a French motoring icon

la belle époque

Pic du Midi - observing stars clearly, A64

Carcassonne, A61: world heritage fortified city

Grand Palais, Paris

Marianne - a French national symbol, with French definitive stamps

the calendar of the French Revolution

le pique-nique

Hermès scarves

bastide towns

mardi gras! carnival in Basque country

what a hair cut! m & french pop/rock

country life in France: the poultry fair

short biography of Pierre (Peter) Abelard

email abelard@abelard.org

© abelard, 2004 - 2007,2009 4 July


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the address for this document is http://www.abelard.org/france/le-tour.php