The Race

From Saturday July 4^th to Sunday July 26^th, the world’s best cyclists will be racing a total distance of 3,500 kilometers in this year Tour de France.

The legendary race contains 21 stages this year and Team Saxo Bank are aiming to repeat last year’s success with the overall win by Carlos Sastre. This year Sastre is not in the team and that opens an opportunity for other riders to go for the overall win, Team Saxo Banks Frank Schleck, who last years finished in sixth place, have made a good start of the season and the Luxembourgian are aiming for wearing the yellow jersey when the tour finishes in Paris.           

The course of this year’s Tour de France is spectacular with many medium mountain climbs, one team time-trail and the tough climb to Mont Vertoux the second last day. Many of the riders and the sport directors agrees over that this climb will be something very extraordinary and that this years Tour both could be won and lost on this day…

The 21 stages have the following profiles:

• 10 flat stages,
• 7 mountain stages,
• 1 medium mountain stage,
• 2 individual time-trial stages,
• 1 team time-trial stage.

It’s not only the classic yellow jersey that the riders are fighting for, here follows a summery of all the jerseys there is in the Tour:

• Yellow Jersey for the general time classification
• Green Jersey for the points classification
• White and Red Polka-Dotted jersey for the best climber classification
• White Jersey for the best young rider classification, for riders no more than 25 years old in the year of the race
• Team time classification
• Most aggressive rider classification

Following teams are invited to race the Tour de France 2009:

• AG2R-LA MONDIALE 
• AGRITUBEL 
• ASTANA 
• BBOX BOUYGUES TELECOM 
• CAISSE D’EPARGNE 
• CERVELO TEST TEAM 
• COFIDIS, LE CREDIT EN LIGNE 
• EUSKALTEL – EUSKADI 
• FRANCAISE DES JEUX 
• GARMIN – SLIPSTREAM 
• LAMPRE - N.G.C. 
• QUICK STEP 
• RABOBANK   
• SILENCE-LOTTO 
• TEAM COLUMBIA - HIGH ROAD 
• TEAM KATUSHA 
• TEAM MILRAM  
• TEAM SAXO BANK 

Never in the history of the event has a mountain been on the programme the day before the finish in Paris. This will be the case this year with the Ventoux mountain finish on the 20^th stage and hopefully we will see a tough fight for the yellow jersey all the way to the top of this legendary mountain.

One of the big news in this year’s tour is the return of the team time-trail. The opening individual time trail will be longer then normal, but accept that the distance of the individual time trail is rather short. This could have disastrous implications for any overall hopefuls who are strong against the clock and therefore the team time-trail will come to play a central role in this year’s tour.

In the team time-trial the stage classification will be calculated according to the time achieved by the fifth rider in each team.

As usual some of the stages in this year’s Tour de France will turn out to play a more central role then others, and if you got the main goal to cross the line in Paris wearing the yellow jersey it’s absolutely important to not loose time to your worst rivals on the really tough stages. 

The race starts in Monaco where the riders will race around the famous Grand Prix track in a 15 km long stage, this gives the TT specialists a real chance to put real time into climbers in a stage twice as long as usual. Just 3 days later the 38 kilometers team time trial stage 4 will be seen as a big opportunity for the more powerful teams to try put pressure on lesser ones.

Most of the rest of the early stages likely give little room to challenge for the overall classification; while many of the rolling roads offer opportunities for the breakaway specialists, it is unlikely that the teams of the still-fresh sprinters will let anyone escape for a stage win.

The stage 7 finish at Andorra-Arcalis will be the first real test for the riders that are interested in the overall victory; if you’re in good shape here you can gain many important seconds.

Stage 13 provides a taster of the days to come as it passes through the medium mountains of the Vosges. While the highest climb of the day is the 1193m col de Piatzerwasel, the steepness of the roads could outweigh the relative lack of altitude and prove tougher than it first looks. The Alps proper begin on the following day though as stage 15 heads for the uphill finish at Verbier, Switzerland for the second mountain top finish of the race.

After the second rest day the Tour heads back to France on stage 16, via the northwest corner of Italy. Taking in the cols de Grand Saint-Bernard and Petit Saint-Bernard, the fast descent into Bourg-Saint-Maurice could provide the opportunity for time gaps as big as those on an uphill finish. The following Stage 17 takes in five climbs (!) in 169km including the tricky Col de la Colombière as it heads to the finish at La Grand Bornand, this will be a tough and important stage for everyone that still are competing about the yellow jersey and the overall win.

Earlier then usual the trial-time specialists get their last chance in the 40 kilometers long stage 18 to gain valuable seconds against their rivals before the peloton attacks stage 20 from Montelimar to Mont Ventoux. On this legendary mountain everything can happen and after this stage there is no time to take back before Paris.