Wars and stuff, you know.
It’s going to take me a day or two to acclimate myself to the magnitude of the task and the fact that nobody I know is racing.
Bradley Wiggins, the defending champion, is Sir Not Appearing in this Film. He dropped out of Giro d’Italia because he was sick and then he got injured. He’s been replaced by Chris Froome as the “great British hope” (second place finisher in 2012) and it’s unknown at this point if he’ll ever return to professional cycling at all. Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador are the other names I’m most familiar with among the pre-race favorites.
But more on that as we go along.
In other shocking developments- No Sprint Prolog! We race in Corsica (French btw, home of Napolean Bonaparte) over 132 miles of flat from Porto-Vecchio to Bastia. Corsica has the only 2 Departments (States) of Metro France Le Tour has never visited, but they’ll be spending 3 days there before moving to the mainland with the only Team Time Trial in Nice.
Night Time Finish! You heard that right. The meaningless parade around the Champs-Élysées will take place under the lights for the first time evah!
From the official site–
Running from Saturday June 29th to Sunday July 21th 2013, the 100th Tour de France will be made up of 21 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,404 kilometres (2115 miles).
These stages have the following profiles:
- 7 flat stages
- 5 hilly stages
- 6 mountain stages with 4 summit finishes
- 2 individual time trial stages
- 1 team time trial stage
- 2 rest days (I’ll be looking forward to these)
10 new stage towns
Porto-Vecchio, Bastia, Ajaccio, Calvi, Cagnes-sur-Mer, Saint-Gildas-des-Bois, Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule, Givors, Chorges, Annecy-Semnoz
Today’s Stage is a Sprinter’s course which could leave one of the Speed Demons like Mad Manx Cavendish in the maillot jaune for the first time in a long time.
Guardian Guide to the 100th Tour de France
- Tour de France 2013: The six major contenders for the yellow jersey
- Tour de France 2013: the green jersey contenders
- Tour de France deserves to have landmark celebrated with a new hero, William Fotheringham
The New York Times
- The Terror and Humiliation of Learning to Ride a Bike at 33 By MARY H. K. CHOI
Sites of Interest-
- Wikipedia
- Porto-Vecchio / Bastia (132 miles, Le Tour)
- Porto-Vecchio / Bastia (Guardian)
- The Guardian
- Guardian Interactive Route Guide
- Le Tour
The Stars Hollow Gazette Tags-
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Nothing ever happens at the beginning anyway.
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4 man break away.
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cranky internet. I blame AT&T.
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under the flag, so they’re going to end the race 3K early.
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and now there is a massive crash.
Initial Results:
1 Marcel Kittel (Ger) Team Argos – Shimano
2 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Katusha
3 Danny Van Poppel (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM
Full result will be posted later today.
over where the finish line was located and a stick bus