Etape du Tour 2010 on 18 July

[Big Ring]

Etape du Tour on 18 July, from Pau to Col du Tourmalet.

http://www.velopeloton.com/blog.htm
&
http://paris.thover.com/story.php?l=en&ID=190

 

[Moondance]

A finish on top of the Tourmalet? Lovely. Am I correct in thinking that that is pretty rare? I mean, this year they had a 40km flat portion after the Tourmalet no? It was the stage Fedrigo took i think.

Both those stages you outlined looked excellent. I'm sure Contador will take them both.

 

[rgmerk]

a little unusual

A finish on top of the Tourmalet? Lovely. Am I correct in thinking that that is pretty rare? I mean, this year they had a 40km flat portion after the Tourmalet no? It was the stage Fedrigo took i think.

Both those stages you outlined looked excellent. I'm sure Contador will take them both.

The trouble with finishing on the top of the Tourmalet is that there's no facilities there; just a souvenir shop, a cafe (with some rather interesting old bicycles in it) and a couple of statues. The road actually passes through a small cutting right at the top. There's very little room for thousands of cyclists milling around.

The Etape organizers are going to have to be fairly brutal in getting people off the top - probably down to La Mongie, a ski village that's a few kilometres from the top on the other side of the hill, if I'm reading the proposed route right - almost as soon as they finish.

With the Tour itself, again, presumably all the media and teams will have to wait at La Mongie for the riders to roll down the hill after the finish.

 

[Moondance]

The trouble with finishing on the top of the Tourmalet is that there's no facilities there; just a souvenir shop, a cafe (with some rather interesting old bicycles in it) and a couple of statues. The road actually passes through a small cutting right at the top. There's very little room for thousands of cyclists milling around.

The Etape organizers are going to have to be fairly brutal in getting people off the top - probably down to La Mongie, a ski village that's a few kilometres from the top on the other side of the hill, if I'm reading the proposed route right - almost as soon as they finish.

With the Tour itself, again, presumably all the media and teams will have to wait at La Mongie for the riders to roll down the hill after the finish.

Figured it was something along those lines why finishes there are rare. Well, people want spectacle on the road and the Tour simply doesn't compare to the Giro, or even the Vuelta in that department the last couple of years. The organizers gotta do what they gotta do.

 

[Big Ring]

The trouble with finishing on the top of the Tourmalet is that there's no facilities there; just a souvenir shop, a cafe (with some rather interesting old bicycles in it) and a couple of statues. The road actually passes through a small cutting right at the top. There's very little room for thousands of cyclists milling around.

The Etape organizers are going to have to be fairly brutal in getting people off the top - probably down to La Mongie, a ski village that's a few kilometres from the top on the other side of the hill, if I'm reading the proposed route right - almost as soon as they finish.

With the Tour itself, again, presumably all the media and teams will have to wait at La Mongie for the riders to roll down the hill after the finish.

I think it adds up. If they have to put up barriers and what have you, for the Etape on Sunday they can leave them there for the two stages to follow.