Tour de France 2011

Tour de France 2011, 98th edition, will start from Saturday July 2rd to Sunday July 24th 2011. The 98th Tour de France will be made up of 21 stages, out of which 6 will be mountain stages and two rest days on July 11 and July 18. The event will cover a total distance of 3,471 kilometers. The complete route of the 2011 Tour de France was announced on 19 October 2010.

After 1976, 1993, 1999 and 2005, the Tour de France will again be coming to the Vendée in 2011. Tour de France is most picturesque event in cycling sphere. It is most challenging and enduring events of cycling world and this time emphasis is on Alps Mountains. The Tour is important for fans in Europe. Millions line along the route, some make camps a week before to get the best view. One word to describe Tour de France is Passion!

The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race held in France. 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.

Stages are classified as follows:

Mass stage – Riders in most stages start together. The first kilometers are a rolling start without racing. The real start is announced by the Tour director waving a white flag. Riders are permitted to touch, but not push or nudge, and to slipstream. The first to cross the line wins. On flat stages or stages with low hills, which generally predominate in the first week, this leads to spectacular mass sprints.

Individual time trials – Riders in a time trial compete individually against the clock, each starting at a different time.

Team time trial – A team time trial is a race against the clock in which each team rides alone. 2010.

The course changes every year, but the race has always finished in Paris. The number of teams usually varies from 20 to 22, with nine riders in each team. Entry is by invitation to teams chosen by the race organizer, the Amaury Sport Organisation. Team members help each other and are followed by managers and mechanics in cars.

The Tour de France 2011 will feature 22 teams who will set off from the Vendée on Saturday 2nd July. After a 2010 edition dedicated to the centenary of the Pyrenees, the 2011 Tour de France will celebrate the centenary of the first time the race climbed the Alps. Race director Christian Prudhomme unveiled track for climbers, with only 64 time trial kilometers of which 23 are a team time trial. Again, there will be no time bonuses on the road from the Vendée region to Paris, while a testing third week in the Alps sees the tour return to the Galibier and L’Alpe d’Huez: two of its most legendary climbs.

Tags: Alps Mountains, Cycling, Galibier, L’Alpe d’Huez, Race, Riders, Tour de France, Vendée