Planning The Route Of The Tour De France The Tour de France is the most prestigious bicycle race in the world, so it is simple to envisage that the route has to be selected extremely carefully. However, to lesser degrees the routes of all cross-country races of all sorts must be chosen carefully too with safety and exciting features in mind. The Tour de France is a long race, but each stage has to be completed in roughly the same time - the hours of daylight basically - no matter what the obstacles are. This means that not every leg may be of the same length as it would be in a stadium. Spectators, both at the event and those keeping an eye on it on TV, expect to see some of the most striking scenery in France, while watching the best cyclists in the world trying to give their all under demanding conditions of heat and gradient. For the Tour de France is played out mostly in the mountains. The Tour de France has been held for over 100 years and it has always been one of the goals of the route committee to plan a path that is roughly equally arduous as the previous races so that the athletes during the decades can be compared to some degree. Of course, training regimens and the technology of the equipment have improved much and the cyclists are all professionals now, whereas decades ago, many, if mot all would have been part-timers - amateurs. This makes meaningful comparisons over decades virtually worthless. One of the things to take into account is the fact that there are different types of cyclists. Some are excellent sprinters, some are power-climbers, some are marathon cyclists, so the route planners have to make sure that the course does not give one particular type of cyclist an unfair advantage. Access for rescue services is a further consideration, because one of the most popular features of the Tour de France is seeing the cyclists storming through a tiny, out-ofthe-way village that no outsiders have ever heard of. It is also a great pleasure for the villagers to find themselves on the path of the Tour de France - the highlight of decades. In fact, villages find it so attractive to get on the route, that there is a lengthy selection process, which is comparable to countries applying to hold the Olympic Games. The mayor or the village will have a proposal drawn up and people will be selected and trained to present it to the route planning committee. This is a difficult process and frequently involves big changes to a small village, After all, they will have to be able to provide food and maybe shelter for thousands of visitors, which may be more than the total population of the whole village itself. This can become even more of a difficultly if the village is selected as a stop-over poin} for an overnight stay - what with the cyclists, the mechanics, the trainers, the doctors, the planners and thousands of spectators.
Planning the route of the Tour de France is a difficult task and one for which the route planners hardly ever receive the recognition that they deserve. Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on numerous subjects, but is currently concerned with London Olympic Dates. Click this link if you are interested in the 2012 London Olympics Volunteers.