Tour de France 2010

Here we go; cobbles, Tourmalet double drop, Pyrenees climax, no Team TT and only one TT stage.

July 3: Prologue- Rotterdam, 8km

July 4: Stage 1 - Rotterdam - Brussels, 224km

July 5: Stage 2 - Brussels - Spa, 192km

July 6: Stage 3 - Wanze - Arenberg Porte du Hainaut, 207km

July 7: Stage 4 - Cambrai - Reims, 150km

July 8: Stage 5 - Epernay - Montargis, 185km

July 9: Stage 6 - Montargis - Gueugnon, 225km

July 10: Stage 7 - Tournus - Station des Rousses, 161km

July 11: Stage 8 - Station des Rousses - Morzine Avoriaz, 189km

July 12: Rest day - Morzine Avoriaz

July 13: Stage 9 - Morzine Avoriaz - St Jean de Maurienne, 204km

July 14: Stage 10 - Chambery - Gap, 179km

July 15: Stage 11 - Sisteron - Bourg les Valence, 180km

July 16: Stage 12 - Bourg de Peage - Mende, 210km

July 17: Stage 13 - Rodez - Revel, 195km

July 18: Stage 14 - Revel - Ax 3 Domaines, 184km

July 19: Stage 15 - Pamiers - Bagnes de Luchon, 187km

July 20: Stage 16 - Bagneres de Luchon - Pau, 196km

July 21: Rest day - Pau

July 22: Stage 17 - Pau - Col du Tourmalet, 174km

July 23: Stage 18 - Salies de Bearn - Bordeaux, 190km

July 24: Stage 19 - Bordeaux-Pauillac, individual timetrial 51km

July 25: Stage 20 - Longjumeau - Paris Champs Elysees, 105km

Total distance: 3,596km

The reduction in TT's should open it up quite a lot. Though this one looks like it's one for the climbers.

Might try and get to teh Morzine Avoriaz stage

there's two time trials -the prologue and the individual TT.
pretty standard

the tour starts practically in my backyard, city will spend a lot of money on bike related projects :) ( i hope we can get a outdoor velotrack out of it, indoor would be better but not enough time to realise that)

Who is up for going over to France for a week or two when the tour is on and spectating, riding some of the stages and eating lots of cheese and drinking wine?

Love to. You paying?

pave ftw!

Who is up for going over to France for a week or two when the tour is on and spectating, riding some of the stages and eating lots of cheese and drinking wine?

yes. see : http://thebikeshow.net/getting-to-le-grand-depart/

I am sorely tempted. stages 1-4 look doable for a short break there.

I've been thinking about heading to France next summer recently, hadn't thought of timing my trip to coincide with the tour. Now very excited about planning this!

Once again the temptation to enter the Etape starts now.

Cuddles is on BMC, he might actually win it now.

Dear Smithchild,

How dare you start the 2010 thread? I've done 2009 & 2008, now you've jinxed it. It's like the ravens leaving the Tower of London.

Yours sincerely,
Sparkles

Glad to see I'm not the first to post on next year's tour. Looking at the itinerary I thought that I might take a little jaunt down to the Tourmalet.
I have no experience of multi-day riding and have never been to watch a day of the tour so I'm quite confident that I'll die or get something/everything stollen en route. Nonetheless I've got 2 friends signed up (fools!)
I'll keep ant eye on this thread and look forward to loads of useful advice/abuse.

Maybe see some of you on the mountainside?

You definately want stollen en route, it's tasty cake goodness!

Hoping for a good drug scandal next year, ála Festina.

Team Sky all on smack, that'd be funny. Bossen Van Hagen is well dodgy as it is.

Not surprising at all.

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/blood-doping-kits-found-at-astana-24480

Bossen Van Hagen is well dodgy as it is.

he's only dodgy in the sense that he's been genetically grown in a lab on an obscure scandinavian island; a place where they product all these viking super-sportsmen.

i'm planning on doing a tour from the brussels on the 4th, to geneva for the european bike polo championships on july 16-18, then possibly catching back up with the tour for the time trial and finish. if anyone wants to join up, the more, the better the drift line....

Are we really supposed to believe that he came back to the sport for a last surge, knowing he would be under intense scrutiny due to his position, only to fill himself full of drugs?

Leaving aside for the moment that Lance was tested at every possible chance and never found to be doping, I just don't think he would do it. He had too much to lose, and not just personally; he seems to be doing it more for the charity and the exposure now than for cash, so the risks involved in cheating are way too high.

Sure, there may have been medicines and treatments going on that pushed up to the rules, but that's sport. F1 teams go as close to the rules as possible, then the rules change and so do their strategies - it's all part of the game.

Are we really supposed to believe that he came back to the sport for a last surge, knowing he would be under intense scrutiny due to his position, only to fill himself full of drugs?

Leaving aside for the moment that Lance was tested at every possible chance and never found to be doping, I just don't think he would do it. He had too much to lose, and not just personally; he seems to be doing it more for the charity and the exposure now than for cash, so the risks involved in cheating are way too high.

Sure, there may have been medicines and treatments going on that pushed up to the rules, but that's sport. F1 teams go as close to the rules as possible, then the rules change and so do their strategies - it's all part of the game.

Dunno - more suspicious of Contador to be honest. Winning that Annecy TT a day after one of the most gruelling mountain days on the tour while cancellara had been sat way back in the bus....And why would he ever stay with Astana anyway, especially with the return of Vinokourov?

Still think he's the greatest rider out there at the moment but it's not inconceivable that he had a little help.

Agree.

The official apology aside, I still don't believe Contador had nothing to do with Operacion Peurto. How does Contador cycle clean in an Astana-Wurth team that has a systematic doping plan? He either walks round with his eyes closed, is complicit but innocent of cheating personally or involved and doping. They should torture the truth out of Fuentes.

No need for torture when a truth serum will do. More fitting.

Is there such a thing?

MDMA dissolved in vodka?