There may still be 99 days to go until the start of the 2012 edition of the Tour de France in Liege on 30 June, but excitement is already building ahead of the Grand Depart of the 100th edition of the race in Corsica 12 months later, the first time the island will have hosted the race. Recently, organisers ASO have followed up a video released in December showcasing the island's links with cycling with one celebrating the sport's heritage in Nice, the city on the mainland where the 2013 Tour de France will resume following its visit to Corsica.
The videos may have been around for a while, but with the 2012 season now in full swing and today's sunshine and warm temperatures making us look forward to summer, we're not going to make any excuses for showing them - and it is Friday, after all.
It won't be until this autumn that we know the final route of next year's race, but what we do officially know already is that the first three stages will be held on Corsica, opening on Saturday 29 June with a sprinter-friendly 200km run from Porto-Vecchio to Bastia, which may give Team Sky’s Mark Cavendish an opportunity to get into the one Grand Tour leader’s jersey that has so far eluded him – the maillot jaune.
That is followed by a 155km stage across some tough climbs in the centre of the island from Bastia to the capital Ajaccio, then what promises to be a spectacular 145km run up Corsica’s scenic west coast to Calvi.
After its visit to Corsica, the last part of Metropolitan France that the Tour has never visited, cycling’s biggest race heads back to the mainland for a team time trial in Nice, site of then world champion Bernard Hinault’s prologue win in 1981. He would go on to win the race that year.
Stage 5 will start a little further west on the Cote d’Azur at Cagnes-sur-Mer, although there’s no news as yet of where it heads after that; Thomas Vergouwen, owner of the Velowire website, who has proved himself time and again to be the most accurate at predicting the route of the race ahead of the official announcement, believes that the destination of that stage could be Gap, with the race then heading into the Alps.
Help us to fund our site
We’ve noticed you’re using an ad blocker. If you like road.cc, but you don’t like ads, please consider subscribing to the site to support us directly. As a subscriber you can read road.cc ad-free, from as little as £1.99.
If you don’t want to subscribe, please turn your ad blocker off. The revenue from adverts helps to fund our site.
If you’ve enjoyed this article, then please consider subscribing to road.cc from as little as £1.99. Our mission is to bring you all the news that’s relevant to you as a cyclist, independent reviews, impartial buying advice and more. Your subscription will help us to do more.
It is and it's got noticeably worse over recent years. I was chatting quite recently with someone who works for TfL (not a driver) who said that...
Maybe adding a U on the end, would make a key selling point for the exact same market group.
The S30 Z Traveler pannier bag I think fills a gap in the market for a larger (but not enormous) capacity rear pannier, so I am interested. However...
Reality based on one customer? Your shortlist must be very short.
Driver jailed after crashing on village road at 75mph and seriously injuring two friends https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c4gwpkj21pzo
No, Prime Minister/ Chancellor, regulation isn't why the economy isn't growing. Have another try. ...
'Ridiculous' Oxford car park charges to increase from April...
Sorry, but Rendel is right. Please don't use such offensive terms. As you say, it's not 1980, when maybe we were a little less aware of prejudice...
I already mentioned the strategies that work, which are reductions of motor vehicle usage and lawlessness. For example, Sweden's population has...
It wouldn't matter if it was made last week in China out of plastic: it's still a good enough reason to deny cyclists safer roads.