Fewer climbs but steeper ones is just one of the aspects of the 2017 Tour de France unveiled today (Tuesday)
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2017 Tour de France Route
The course of the 104th Tour de France (1-23 July, 2017), stands out for its atypical mountain stages. The route for the 2017 Tour de France will cover five mountain ranges for first time in 25 years.
Although there will be fewer climbs than usual, their steeper gradients will separate the pretenders to the true grimpeurs.
Thirty years after the 1987 Grand Départ in Berlin, the Tour will start in the German city of Düsseldorf and later head to Belgium and Luxembourg.
The course of the 2017 Tour de France will feature France’s five mountain ranges where the Tour favourites will go head-to-head on steep gradients. The Izoard will host the last summit finish.
The Vosges, Jura, Pyrenees, Central Massif and Alps — the 2017 Tour de France will tackle France’s five major mountain ranges in this order.
Mountain goats, however, will not have all the fun, and they will have to fight for the yellow jersey in a time trial on the Mediterranean coast, with the finish line right in Marseille’s Vélodrome stadium.
From Saturday July 1st to Sunday July 23rd 2017, the 104th Tour de France will be made up of 21 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,516 kilometres.
– 9 flat stages
– 5 hilly stages
– 5 mountain stages including summit finishes (La Planche des Belles Filles, Peyragudes, Izoard)
– 2 individual time-trials stages
– 2 rest days
Time Trials
It’ll be after a 13-kilometre time-trial in the streets of Düsseldorf that the first Yellow Jersey of the 2017 Tour de France will be awarded. In Marseille, after the 20th and penultimate stage, a 23 kilometre time-trial, the winner of the 104th edition of the Grande Boucle will be crowned. In total, only 36km of time trials so probably not having much of an effect on the overall result.
Time Bonuses
Re-introduced in 2015 after a seven-year absence, bonus seconds will again be up for grabs at the finishes of all the normal stages. There will indeed be 10, 6 and 4 seconds to be gained for the first three of each stage.
Polka Dot & Green jerseys
The green jersey will be awarded to the leader of the points classification. These points will be given out at the finishes of each stage as well as on the unique intermediate sprints of normal stages.
The polka-dot jersey will be on the shoulders of the leader of the best climbers’ classification. Points will be awarded at the top of each Col or Côte and the three altitude finishes (La Planche des Belles Filles, Peyragudes, Izoard).
10 new sites and stage cities
– šDüsseldorf (1st stage and start of stage 2)
– Mondorf-les-Bains (start of stage 4)
š- Nuits-Saint-Georges (finish of stage 7)
– Nantua (start of stage 9)
– Eymet (start of stage 11)
š- Laissac-Sévérac l’Église (start of stage 15)
– Romans-sur-Isère (finish of stage 16)
– La Mure (start of stage 17)
š- Izoard (finish of stage 18)
– Salon-de-Provence (finish of stage 19)
For the ladies – the Alps
Since 2014, the Tour de France has leveraged its fame and know-how to support women’s cycling by organising La Course, a prestigious event for the world elite, which has been held three times on the Champs-Élysées finishing circuit in Paris.
The fourth edition will send the ladies on a mountain quest: just a few hours before the men’s peloton, they will light the first fireworks in the final 66 kilometres of the stage from Briançon to the Izoard. Sprinters will be nowhere to be seen on the final ascent, described by Jacques Goddet as “a harrowing trial which establishes the boundary between difficult and terrifying”. Welcome to the Alps, ladies say the organisers.
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