The Tour goes to France, swapping beer-producing Binche for Epernay, capital of champagne wines. The finale 50km have plenty of fizz, with steep climbs amid the vineyards and a sharp ramp to the finish line.
Tour de France
Tour de France Stage 2 Preview
A day in and the the team time trial, an important rendez-vous for those with hopes for the win in Paris.
Tour de France Stage 1 Preview
No more waiting, the Tour de France starts today and there’s loop out of Brussels with bergs and cobbles before a high stress finish and a presumed bunch sprint with yellow jersey waiting for the winner.
Tour de France Preview
This is probably the most open Tour de France since 2012 with a long list of contenders and pretenders. This much we know, picking a winner for Paris is at best test of epistemology and more truthfully exercise in story telling. Which rider seems the most convincing?
Tour de France iCal
Here’s a downloadable calendar of the Tour de France for your electronic diary or phone with brief details of each stage. There’s also a look at the TV coverage of the race.
Tour de France Mountains Competition Contenders
Having looked at the points competition and green jersey contenders yesterday, now the mountains competition and polka dot jersey competition. If the green jersey competition has been tweaked, this year’s mountains competition has had some big changes with the hors catégorie climbs becoming all important.
Tour de France Points Competition Contenders
Here’s a closer look at the Tour de France’s points competition and the contenders for the green jersey. Peter Sagan’s owned this competition for years now and he’s hard to see past when it comes to winning again. This blog doesn’t need to hype up rivals to sell the contest but we can still explore the points, route and rivals because there are a few subtle changes this year.
Tour de France Guide
Here’s the 2019 Tour de France guide. There’s a profile of every stage with a quick comment on the route. You’ll also find reference material on the race rules like time bonuses, the points scale for the green and polka-dot jersey, time cuts and plenty more.
Revenue Sharing Revisited
Several years ago “revenue sharing” was all the rage with several team managers making public calls for the major race organisers to pay them money. Only even if a race owner felt inclined, when you looked at the data the sums available were small. Now it’s time to refresh the numbers and also to see how the teams are doing.
Highlights of 2018: Part V
The fifth and final pick, not easy as to pick one means to exclude all the others but let’s go with John Degenkolb’s Tour de France win, a satisfying result on many levels.