Etape du tour

le Tour gets announced at an "overview" level (i.e. the start and finish towns, not the actual road
routes) in late October - and in detail in May - not sure about the Etape (but some of the tour
package organisers will probably have details in advance)

RG

"Neale" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Can someone tell me when the course for next years's TDF, and more particlarly the Etape duTour
gets decided.

RG <[email hidden]> wrote:
: le Tour gets announced at an "overview" level (i.e. the start and finish towns, not the actual
: road routes) in late October - and in detail in May - not sure about the Etape (but some of the
: tour package organisers will probably have details in advance)

TdF - details usually at the start of January.

The Etape route is usually announced a few weeks after that.

The tour package groups don't get anything in advance of the general public, or at least Baxter's
didn't and they are one of the bigger ones.

However, you can usually make a good guess based on the following:

1) THe Etape tends to swap Alps -> Pynenees in alternate years
2) Sometimes it has a route in the Massif Central or other hilly but not Alps/pynenees area. I'd
say this year is a potential canditate for this. Otherwise it's the Alps since it was the
Prynenees last year
3) Most years the Etape is one of the shorter mountain stages - 90-100 and not usually the
hardest stage.

Also they avoid routes that have been done before - a candidate for this years Etape stage would
have been the stage to Liz Ardiden, but that was the same route as in 2001.

Arthur