Subject: Tour de France 2011

The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race held in France and nearby countries and lasts three weeks. As the best known and most prestigious of cycling's three "Grand Tours", the Tour de France attracts riders and teams from around the world. The race is broken into day-long segments, called stages. Individual times to finish each stage are aggregated to determine the overall winner at the end of the race. The rider with the lowest aggregate time at the end of each day wears a yellow jersey. The course changes every year, but the race has always finished in Paris. Since 1975, the climax of the final stage has been along the Champs-Élysées.



The route:
Running from Saturday July 2nd to Sunday July 24th 2011, the 98th Tour de France will be made up of 21 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,430.5 kilometres.

These stages have the following profiles:
• 10 flat stages,
• 6 mountain stages and 4 summit finishes,
• 3 medium mountain stages,
• 1 individual time-trial stage (42.5 km).
• 1 team time-trial stage (23 km).

Distinctive aspects of the race:
• le Galibier climbed twice,
• 2 rest days,
• 23 level 2, 1 or highest level mountain passes or summit finishes,
• no bonuses will be awarded during the intermediate sprints and stage finishes.







List of teams:
This Tour features 22 cycling teams, 18 UCI ProTour teams are invited.
Omega Pharma - Lotto (Bel)
Quickstep Cycling Team (Bel)
Saxo Bank Sungard (Den)
Euskaltel - Euskadi (Spa)
Movistar Team (Spa)
Ag2R La Mondiale (Fra)
Sky Procycling (GBr)
Lampre - ISD (Ita)
Liquigas - Cannondale (Ita)
Pro Team Astana (Kaz)
Team Leopard - Trek (Lux)
Rabobank Cycling Team (Ned)
Vacansoleil - DCM Pro Cycling Team (Ned)
Katusha Team (Rus)
BMC Racing Team (USA)
HTC - Highroad (USA)
Team Garmin - Cervelo (USA)
Team Radioshack (USA)

In addition, 4 French Professional Continental are invited.
Cofidis, Le Credit En Ligne (Fra)
Saur - Sojasun (Fra)
FDJ (Fra)
Team Europcar (Fra)

The Geox - TMC team is notably absent from the start list. It includes 2008 Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre and podium contender Denis Menchov.


Favorites to win the Tour de France 2011 (Bookmakers):
Alberto Contador

Andy Schlek
Cadel Evans
Robert Gesink
Bradley Wiggins
Ivan Basso
Samuel Sanchez
Jurgen Van den Broeck
Frank Schleck
Jani Brajkovic
Levi Leipheimer


Stages, results and more Tour de France info:
letour.fr
wikipedia.org
twitter.com

live cycling on procyclinglive.com

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To be fair the only 2 parts that interest me and are connected with cycling at the same time are crashes and dope scandals.

Felt same 2 years ago, but Pro Cycling manager gameseries changed my opinion completely. If you know the riders and the background and are familiar with the stages then its actually pretty entertaining.

Tho yes, 6 hours of watching it on TV is kinda boring:P

Always watch the full episodes but do something else instead (playing pcm :D )
and than sitback and relax for the last 20 km

King of the mountain = Gilbert
Proud to be Belgian again :)

Rein Taaramäe was 8th! :)

love le tour. Got no eurosport to watch it on now though :(

andy schleck to win

No Eurosport needed, try the links at the end of the first post ;)
(edited)

Giro > Tour > Vuelta
But the best riders always go to Tour because there is a lot more money there :)

i knoow but it aint the same on a laptop lol, too much buffering and stuff. Did watch about half hour today though and it worked well, team stages are just a bit naff.

I tend to see who has won each stage, and to see who is being tested for drugs.

I watch basically all...since I installed a big screen at my working desk aswell...
This year I would go for Cadel Evans....and I am pretty sure....

You watch all cycling? But still you think it's totally unexpected when Vansummeren wins Paris-Roubaix ... :')

I would bet on Evans. True, he's got a good GC position and is in great form, but there will always be someone better :)
(edited)

yes vansummeren to win is totally unexpected at paris -roubaix...

a bit silly conclusion that there is always someone better...
Evans used to be defensive and he managed to hold on in the mountains, but now he will go up there to the top....maybe last and final high mountain stages a few secs here and there....
but on the timetrial he will rock...and he will be attacking if needed!
today is mur the bretagne , a palce where I ve been around for years since my ex-wife lives in Bretagne..I tell you, that very mur is made for Cadel...
offcourse ther eare tohers that will go...all favorites will fight on the mur...and a mistake, a problem, a bad day or failure means 30 sec to a minute loss!
this one is not for the real goats like Schlecks or Geesink, Contador is strong enough and explosive, Cancelara too big, Wiggins too light, Gilbert is okay,Hushovd to old and counting his points, Hoogerland is top, as is Evans.

I give the name of todays stagewinner : Gilbert, no doubt, not even Evans will manage to keep up. Gilbert has everything to win, a team that believes in him, the knowledge, the flow and every other rider is scared to be countered by Gilbert. They just know he's made for finishes like that.
I tell you, Gilbert will win...If you saw how he was playing with the peddles during the race. I said to a friend, Gilbert is too good today and he can't hide it, look at him.
If Contador can follow Gilbert in the first meters of his attack, which is possible imo. Then Alberto can take back some time, the same for Jurgen VDB (he's also in shape, just pitty of that TTT)