Details

Published on Tuesday, 20 October 2015 10:36

2016 Tour de France Route 

The route for the 2016 Tour de France was announced on the 20th October at the Palais des Congrès. It's a varied route with lots of climbing, two TTs, including a 17km uphill TT to Megève on Stage 18 and a spectacular stage to Mont Ventoux on Bastille day. It starts in Mont-Saint-Michel and spends two stages in La Manche before heading south to Angers.

At 3,519kms it is 158.7kms longer than the 2015 race, which is practically a full stage more. It will pay visits to Andorra, Spain and Switzerland and take an anti-clockwise route from the northern coastline, through the Massif-Central and on to the Alps via the Pyrenees and the south coast. There are five mountain stages, four of which have summit finishes: stage 9, to Andorra-Arcalis; stage 12, to Mont Ventoux; stage 17, to Finhaut Émosson and stage 19, to Saint-Gervais-les-Bains.

The 2016 Route in 3D

It looks like an excellent route with lots of variety and one that will suit the climbers more than most - Chris Froome in particular was pretty pleased with it and well he might with the amount of climbing and two time trials.

"It challenges every aspect of cycling - time trials, mountains, technical descents. It's such an amazing, special race. I'm still 30 years old and feel I have a lot left in my legs. It suits me better than last year's Tour," he added, in reference to a course featuring two time trials that total 53.6 kilometres, compared to one short individual time trial in the 2015 race.

The 103rd edition of the Tour will return to Mont Ventoux on Bastille Day - 14 July - three years after the famous victory that effectively sealed Froome's first Tour win.

"The beautiful thing about the Tour de France is that it's not specifically about one stage - I think it's going to take a complete cyclist - but the stage that certainly stands out for me is Mont Ventoux," said Froome. "I know how difficult this climb is and how much time can be won or lost."

Nairo Quintana has also expressed his satisfaction with the route, as the hilly time trial on stage 18 will suit him a lot better than if it was just a flat time trial.  

Alberto Contador also reckons the hard course is going to favour the climbers, and is worried in particular about the two time trials:

“The parcours appears to be very difficult and one has to start in good form because the fifth stage already has a fairly demanding finish. The two time trials stand out and are probably the ones that make the difference from the 2015 parcours. Both time trials are tough, the first one not excessively long and a priori I like them both.

“The mountain stages are evenly spread out from start to finish and you will have to manage your forces very well in order not to reach the final stages worn out. Is it a Tour for climbers? Yes, it is, although last year’s Tour was even more since it didn’t have so many time trials. It clearly is a course well suited to the profile of climbers.”

 ...____..