Tour de France info

We are making some headway in our TDF05 tour planning; though we can only guess at this point about the tour, the official route will be announced on October 28. At letour.fr the first 3 days of the route are shown, starting in western France. We have been able to determine that in the Alps the tour will probably pass through Gap on its way to Briancon and over the Col de Lautaret and then Col de Galibier, and Col de Telegraph. If so, this would mean that Alpe d'Huez and Les Deux Alpes are NOT on the 2005 route. It would be appropriate for Alpe d'Huez to go missing this year with the last 2 years being very prominent for that "hill".

Also, we seem to have discovered a time trial in the area of the Chateau of Chambord toward the end of the race. Probably, this will be the last time trial before going into Paris, and possibly the deciding stage of the 2005 race.

The Pyrenees have not been so revealing just yet, though we have some ideas, including Ax les Thermes and Pau certainly on the route.

So, will Lance Armstrong race the Tour in 2005? Yes, he has to. Though I have no first hand knowledge, I would think his new sponsorship would require it, whether he wins or not is another question however. Who can beat him? Good question, the competition is really weak. This year's victory by Lance was either total domination by an obviously superior team, or a supreme let down by the rest of the field that is not very strong. I would think that the best challengers are now Vinikourov and Basso.

Anyone wishing to get an announcement of our Tour de France tours can send an email. To check out the latest news and info see the sites linked at left. Note; the l'Equipe site is only in French.

L
Email contact