The route of the 2011 Tour has been determined with two objectives in mind: to set the pace from the beginning of the race and maintain suspense right up until the very end.
Last summer’s first week was thrilling, and this year it will offer the riders a difficult route, that will be spectacular and capable of providing various scenarios…
From Vendée to Indre, we wanted to provide the riders with a variety of challenges, including final slopes which sometimes have very marked relief to finish the stages, a team time-trial for the specialists in this kind of exercise, a final stretch facing the sea, exposed to the wind, in the magnificent setting of Cap Fréhel, and of course “classic” flat finishes for pure sprinters. The route has been designed so that all kinds of riders will be able to make their presence felt during these first days where the favourites should already be apparent, especially in the Mûr-de-Bretagne, in an atmosphere and with an enthusiasm that we can already imagine.
In the Massif Central, the race route will gain height, before moving on, very soon after, to the Pyrenees. During this second week, the peloton will discover the Tour’s new mountain passes, the promising Perthus, in the heart of Cantal, and the outstanding Hourquette d’Ancizan, on the Luz-Ardiden road: the slightest weakness will be fatal, such as on the slopes of the Aubisque or on the Plateau de Beille.
The third week will be crucial: it will honour the giant, the Galibier, which was climbed for the first time one hundred years earlier, in the appropriate way. Its summit will initially be reached after a long Franco-Italian expedition, (which also includes the ascent of the Agnel and the Izoard), making it the highest finish in the Tour’s history, at an altitude of 2, 645 m. Then it will be crossed for the second time during a very short and exciting stage, punctuated by the twenty one mythical bends of l’Alpe d’Huez, which has never been climbed so late on in the race, two days before the finish in Paris. Nevertheless, the odds for the Yellow Jersey may still be open the next day in Grenoble, in a final time-trial which will hopefully be decisive, as in recent years.
Christian PRUDHOMME Director of the Tour de France
