Have we discussed the Tour de France 2013 route yet?

Twice up the Alpe in the same stage. Ooft.

Yes. 🙂

I’m talking about the men’s race.

[stirs hornets nest] From chemist to pharmacy to doctor to win… [/stirs hornets nest]

Contador is going to have fun then…

Wiggins is talking about focussing on the Giro next year rather than the Tour – perhaps he sees the course as a hill too big for him to win again.

Was always going to be thus on the hundredth running. Classic hills, surprised it isn’t three weeks of mountains.

Nah some of the sprint finishes, such a Bordeaux (haven’t checked if there is one finishing there yet!) are also classics…alpe twice was done in 2011 wasn’t it? I’ll be on the alpe next year-should be carnage! 🙂

Ohhhhhhhh a sprint to start 🙂

The time trials are all pretty short, on first look the stages look slightly short.

I guess they are expecting people to be taking less EPO this year.

Jtl will be working overtime,either for himself or Froome? Or vise versa?

3 stages within reach of my mums house…. holiday booked!

Nighttime finish mooted on the CEls. .

I doubt JTL will ride. If he does it will be in support of Froome.

It looks great – Corsica, Ventoux, 2 x Alpe D’Huez, Mont St Michel and a night finish in Paris. So why have they made such a mess of the Etape du tour? It’s fairly short and has none of the classic climbs.

Because a sportive for a load of gurning MAMILs doesn’t feature too highly on ASO’s priority list right now…

Brailsford was hinting yesterday that wiggo may be support to Froome next year, but thats all irrelevent if nothing is done about the doping problem – schlecks and bertie will dominate.

I can see the ventoux stage getting pretty ugly, its a long long race before they get to it then it just ramps up and up and up

ventoux should be especially good as it’s also bastille day so all the french nutjobs will be going for it to win.
Expect a big breakaway in the first few km’s with the french teams all represented, followed by them getting picked off on the slopes of the mountain and someone like rolland or pinot going for it with 5k left

thinking about that stage has made me think happy thoughts about pro-cycling for the first time in weeks 😀

Because a sportive for a load of gurning MAMILs doesn’t feature too highly on ASO’s priority list right now…

Cancel it. Problem solved.

on first look the stages look slightly short.

242km to the top of Mont Ventoux.

I rode it in the 2009 Etape, where it was “only” 172km. Still sat at the top and threw up though….