Well, I waited and waited and today was the day that they announced the official route for L'Etape Du Tour 2008!
I will provide as much detail as I can without boring you too much!
Date: 6th July 2008
Route: Pau --> Hautacam
Distance: 165km (102.5 miles)
Climbs: Tourmalet and Hautacam
Total Climbing: 2438m (8000 ft)
Above: The course profile
Tourmalet:
Full details on Tourmalet can be found here:
http://www.climbbybike.com/climb.asp?Col=Col-du-Tourmalet&qryMountainID=25
Full details on Tourmalet can be found here:
http://www.climbbybike.com/climb.asp?Col=Col-du-Tourmalet&qryMountainID=25
The mountain climb is 17.7km long over an average gradient of 7.5% ... The gradient raises to 10% in places so will be a hard climb! I have posted the profile of the climb below (click to see bigger image).
Above: Tourmalet Profile
Hautacam:
Full details on Hautacam can be found here:
http://www.climbbybike.com/climb.asp?Col=Hautacam&qryMountainID=6855
Full details on Hautacam can be found here:
http://www.climbbybike.com/climb.asp?Col=Hautacam&qryMountainID=6855
Although this one isn't as long as the Tourmalet it will certainly be just as difficult, with an average gradient of 7.2% over 14.5km. Hautacam raises to over 10% gradient in some places and will be a tough test! Click the image below to see a bigger version
Above: Hautacam Profile
You can see the official site here:
http://www.letapedutour.com/2008/ETDT/presentation/us/index.htm
Hopefully thats enough information for the time being. I'm pretty sure that there'll be more details released over the coming months, with teams generally reccy'ing the stage route to give us a taster of the pain we are going to suffer!
Anyway, thanks for reading, will update again soon.
Paul
