Let’s Talk Tour (Part 1)

Route of the 2009 Tour de France

The route for the 2009 Tour de France was unveiled on October 22 in Paris at a lavish ceremony during which the Tour organizers went out of their way to ignore all the miscreants (some very recently named) from this year’s edition. The route looks intriguing (every year the rider’s proclaim the just-announced course to be “interesting”). Many of the stages have special interest for me, so let me try to impart a teeny slice of inside info on a few of them.

The opening individual Time Trial in Monaco will be awesome. Assuming they use some of the same city streets that get blocked off for the F1 race there in May, you might be able to catch long looks at riders on various sections of the course from the heights around the palace, just southwest of the port. I watched the 2005 F1 race from there, and the views were outstanding. Don’t forget to marvel at the quantity and size of the many private yachts that will be moored in the marina. If you have binoculars, make sure you scan the decks of the largest yachts. It’s not clear to me why, but many decks on large yachts are favorite sunbathing spots for nubile starlets who seem to have an affinity for avoiding bikini marks.

Although the actual route details have not yet been released, stage 2 will take the riders from Monaco to Brignoles. There may be other ways to get to Brignoles, but a glance at Michelin indicates a high likelihood that the peloton will go through Grasse. Grasse is a charming hill town, with a marvelously convoluted inner city. The town is most famous for the many perfume manufacturers who operate there, turning the herbs of Provence into delicate scents. If you watch the stage from this town, make sure to visit a few of the wondrous outdoor cafes sitting jowl-to-jowl in the long promenades. Grasse is not in the high mountains, but the riding in this area will involve enough sharp climbing to give motivated escape artists opportunities to get away and stay away.

Stage 3 from Marseilles to La Grande Motte takes in roads that I trained on for many months in the early 90s. The route will circle the northern edge of the Etang de Berre, most likely crossing the Rhone in Arles. Arles, as you all remember, is where Van Gogh produced his most stunning works and, not realizing how important it would be once the iPod was invented, he lopped off one of his ears. The light there is truly amazing, and the city itself is as delightful as any in southern France. The route will skirt the Camargues, the amazing marshland filled with flamingoes, native bulls and French cowboys called “gardians”. Before reaching La Grande Motte, it appears the bunch will ride through Aigues Mortes, an outstanding example of a fortress-enclosed, still vibrant medieval town. La Grande Motte itself is one of a string of beach towns, directly on the Mediterranean, all of them bristling with fairly modern beach accommodations. The beaches in this area of France are much busier in the summer than winter months, so riding through these towns in the winter is like visiting a Colorado ghost town.

Montpellier, the host for the stage 4 team time trial, was my home for six months, so I remember it fondly, even though not very acutely. The official Tour map indicates that the TTT loop might be to the east of the city. I actually lived in a small village called Mireval, just southeast of Montpellier, so I rode thousands of kilometers on the area roads in the 90s. The roads are mostly flat, but there are some hills in the vicinity of Cournonterral and Murviel-les-Montpelliers, raising expectations that the TTT course will be challenging. Right now the Garmin-Chipotle team, with Zabriskie, Millar, Vande Velde and new signees Wiggins and Svein Tuft, is billing itself as the team to beat. They do look strong on paper, but I’m not sure I would be depositing that minute plus against other top contenders in the bank just yet.

Stage 5 starts in Le Cap D’Agde, a wonderful beach resort area that has a well-earned reputation for hosting one of the most infamous and well-populated nude beaches in all of Europe. Topless bathing in France is still quite common and its titillation factor in that country is quite low, but Americans and many other foreigners are still fascinated by the undraped human form, so make sure you take in the spectacle if you attend this stage. From Cap D’Agde, the route will likely go through Beziers and Narbonne before ending in Perpignan, gateway to the eastern Pyrenees. When I rode my Brevets to qualify for Paris-Brest-Paris in 1991, they all started in Beziers and a number of them took in Perpignan and some of the foothills of the eastern Pyrenees, so I have warm reminiscences of those roads.

Next time – reflections on stage 6 from Girona to Barcelona, stage 7 from Barcelona to Andorra, stage 10 from Limoges to Issoudun, stage 13 from Vittel to Colmar, stage 14 from Colmar to Besanson and stage 21, the finale into Paris.