At this time of year I start to spend too much time on the internet trying to follow the rumours surrounding the course of the Tour de France for the following year. I try to convince Anne it is important for us to know what direction the Tour is likely to take but I am not sure she buys into that. She does have a point as, in reality, we always have to wait for the official course to be announced before we can finalise our itinerary for the Cycle Hame Tour de France Alps week anyway.
The 2013 TdF course will be announced on October 24th, a little over 2 weeks from now and the rumour mill has gone into overdrive. It appears they now have a good idea for most of the course but there are a handful of stages they are struggling to work out, particularly in the final week when the race is expected to be in the Alps. The latest rumour is that the race will finish on Alpe d'Huez rather than the usual finish in Paris - ooh la la.
It is known that the race will start on Saturday 29 June with the first 3 stages taking place on Corsica and stage 4, a team time trial in Nice. This part has already been announced by ASO, the organisers of the Tour. From there it is expected to head West with 1 or 2 stages in the Pyrenees. The second week should start in Brittany and it is widely expected that one of the stages will be a time trial up Mont St Michel, I love that place and it should make a great stage setting. From there it will head back East through the centre of France, and on to Lyon by the end of the second week.
July 14 falls on a Sunday next year and it looks as though there will be a finish on Mt Ventoux for Bastille day. It all looks like a decent race so far.
Then we move into the final week and as I mentioned earlier the amateur detectives seem to be having the difficulty in deciding where it will go, here is what it looks like at the moment:
Monday - rest day
Tuesday - finish in Gap
Wednesday - not sure, possibly a time trial around Lac Serre Poncon
Thursday - the rumour is that the riders will finish the stage by climbing Alpe d'Huez ...twice!
Friday - finish in Savoie/Haute Savoie
Saturday - no idea but plenty of rumours including a stage around Annecy, a time trial from Annecy up to Semnoz, and a stage from Annemasse to Dole
Sunday - traditionally this is the finish at the Champs Elysée but the latest rumours are for a stage finish on Alpe d'Huez.
Something will need to change, it is unimaginable that the race will climb Alpe d'Huez 3 times! At the same time we are expecting some sort of surprise as 2013 will be the 100th Tour de France.
You can take a look at the velowire website if you want to follow the rumours, most of the forum discussion is in French.
Take a look at the CYCLE HAME BLOG for news, updates, information, offers, and more
Showing posts with label Tour de France. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tour de France. Show all posts
Monday, October 8, 2012
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Autumn in the French Alps - between the road bike and ski seasons
As I mentioned in my previous post, our final guests for 2012 road bike season left last weekend and it is amazing how quickly the Autumn has taken a hold since then. Some of our guests may recognise the road between La Tania and Meribel in the picture below, the photo was taken by Anne in the middle of the week. Over the last couple of days we have seen an even bigger change in the landscape and Autumn colours.
This is now our interseason and we will be trying to get the Cycle Hame 2013 Summer season programme completed and onto the website. Some of the planned trips are already on the site and we do have a few weeks booked already. It does look as though the Marmotte week and the Tour de France week are going to be popular, and will book up quickly, so if either of these are of interest let us know soon.
On top of getting the Summer programme completed we are also preparing for the 2012-2013 Ski Hame season and as the Winter approaches it really does keep us busy.This year we expect our preparation to be a little easier to get organised than the last couple of years. Aiden will be 3 in a couple of weeks and in France that means he has started school already. Anne and I were anxious about this to begin with, we have now accepted that it will be good for him socially, and in reality it is just like pre-school but takes place in the local school. Now I think it is the teachers I worry about more, he has recently adopted a new imaginary persona named Tom and thinks he is magic - he is not Tom and he is not magic. To make it even more difficult, he rabbits on all day long in English and the poor French teachers don't have a clue what he is talking about. Still, it helps us to get on with our work here and I am sure they will all work it out in the end.
On top of getting the Summer programme completed we are also preparing for the 2012-2013 Ski Hame season and as the Winter approaches it really does keep us busy.This year we expect our preparation to be a little easier to get organised than the last couple of years. Aiden will be 3 in a couple of weeks and in France that means he has started school already. Anne and I were anxious about this to begin with, we have now accepted that it will be good for him socially, and in reality it is just like pre-school but takes place in the local school. Now I think it is the teachers I worry about more, he has recently adopted a new imaginary persona named Tom and thinks he is magic - he is not Tom and he is not magic. To make it even more difficult, he rabbits on all day long in English and the poor French teachers don't have a clue what he is talking about. Still, it helps us to get on with our work here and I am sure they will all work it out in the end.
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