The second day in the Alps and a more mountainous stage than yesterday, an extra one thousand metres of vertical gain, all in 145km.
Tour de France Stage 7 Preview
The longest stage of the Tour and a hard final hour in the Morvan’s mini-mountains before the finish in the industrial town of Le Creusot.
Roads to Ride: The Signal d’Uchon
What’s the difference between a mountain and a hill? Geologists and cartographers might have their definitions and some say it’s just a question of semantics.
Visit the Morvan, France’s smallest mountain range, and it does have that mountainous feel, there’s a sense of scale, severity and menace. When the Tour de France route was unveiled last year the Signal d’Uchon was one of the novelties presented and it will feature late on Stage 7. Is it a mountain? Let’s take a closer look…
Tour de France Stage 5 Preview
A big day for the GC contenders, today’s time trial will reshuffle the pack of cards with the kings and aces coming to the fore.
Tour de France Stage 4 Preview
Another sprint stage, it’s the last day in Brittany but on larger roads for much of the stage.
Pro Team Sponsors
There are 23 teams in the Tour de France with a variety of sponsors: a mix of brands, wealthy individuals and governments. Let’s follow the money and then imagine if we could use every brand going.
Tour de France Stage 3 Preview
A stage for the sprinters but a day’s racing in Brittany which means up and down roads. The defining characteristic of today’s route is the narrow rural roads along much of the route before the tricky finish in Pontivy.
Raymond Poulidor
Raymond Poulidor died in November 2019. With his grandson Mathieu van der Poel in the yellow jersey in the Tour de France, this is a repost of an obituary that appeared here in tribute, in case readers want some background on Poulidor, his time in the sport and what he meant, and perhaps still means, to part of the public in France.
Poulidor was a champion cyclist and made a name for himself as a loveable loser, a moral winner and a dependable emblem of rural France during a period of societal change. His reputation reaches far beyond cycling and there are Poulidors in sport, politics and life.