If you’re interested in Bikestyle’s 2008 Giro trip, details are now available, go check them out! The trip runs from Thursday 22 May to Monday 2 June 2008, you’ll stay in 4 star hotels and see seven race stages along the way.
We’ve also updated our trip comments section, so if you want to know what our clients think of Bikestyle, take a look!
First update just in! We’re working to get you full details of all trips in the next few days.
In the meantime, take a look at itineraries for:
Brittany and the Loire Valley - 3rd - 10th July 2008. 8 days, 7 nights. Starts and finishes in Paris. See the first five stages, including the first Time Trial.
Follow the Tour all the way through the Alpes, its excursion into Italy and the finale through the Pyrenees and to Paris. 12th - 28th July 2008. 17 days, 16 nights. Starts and finishes in Paris.
See the final 5 Stages including Alpe d’Huez and the Final Time Trial. 20th - 28th July 2008. 9 days, 8 nights. Starts and finishes in Paris.
Secure your place on the amazing Pau-Hautacam stage, scene of this year’s Etape du Tour. Sunday, July 6th 2008.
Reserve your spot at the Tour now - Etape du Tour or one of Bikestyle’s Tour de France trips.
We’ll be publishing more updates over the next few days - keep an eye out for details of our amazing Exclusive Access Packages.
The 2008 Tour de France route is in!
ASO has made some tweaks to the proven Tour de France course formula. The BikeStyle crew were on hand as the route was announced in Paris. So what’s different about the 08 Tour?
How will these factors change the way the race is ridden? We managed to get Cadel Evans opinion of the 2008 Tour de France route- He thinks that GC contenders like himself will concentrate even more on the second half of the race. He also made the observation that if there hadn’t been time bonuses in the 2007 tour he would have won! (so we can expect more attacking riding from Cadel in 2008?) 
Lawrie, is busy sorting out next years tours — the start in Brittany has three stages in a compact area and offers beautiful towns, countryside and plenty of sprint finishes. The Alps and Pyrenees offer some great mountain top finishes and classic mountain stages. The sojourn into Italy over some mountains never before visited would be great to watch and perhaps ride after the race… Sign up for the Bikestyle Tours newsletter now and we’ll let you know how you can see the race with BikeStyle Tours. In the meantime, book your holiday time for next July and drool over the details of the 2008 Tour de France stages below:
That’s it from this year’s Tour presentation. We’ll post some more photos and look forward to hearing your opinions on the 2008 route in our comments, below!
Prudhomme is talking about the 2008 sponsors - no changes from the usual crowd that I can see. Prudhomme signs off with ‘Vive le Tour’!
The camera is panning across the crowd here and everyone looks extremely serious… No smiles at all!
Can’t quite work out what’s innovative about this route, apart from many long stages and a looong time to the first rest day! What do you think? What will be the decisive stages, will shorter time trials make for a better race, leave a comment!..
Saturday, 5 July 2008 : Brest - Plumelec - 195km
Sunday, 6 July 2008 : Auray - St Brieuc - 165km
Monday, 7 July 2008 : St Malo - Nantes - 195km
Tuesday, 8 July 2008 : Cholet - Cholet - 29km TT
Wednesday, 9 July 2008 : Cholet - Châteauroux - 230km
Thursday, 10 July 2008 : Aigurande - Super-Besse - 195km
Friday, 11 July 2008 : Brioude - Aurillac - 158km
Saturday, 12 July 2008 : Figeac - Toulouse - 174km
Sunday, 13 July 2008 : Toulouse - Bagnères de Bigorre - 195km inc. Col des Ares, Peyresourde, Aspin
Monday, 14 July 2008 : Pau - Hautacam - inc. Tourmalet
Tuesday, 15 July 2008 : Rest Day
Wednesday, 16 July 2008: Lannemezan - Foix - 166km
Thursday, 17 July 2008 : Lavelanet - Narbonne - 168km
Friday, 18 July 2008 : Narbonne - Nîmes - 182km
Saturday, 19 July 2008 : Nîmes - Digne les Bains - 182km
Sunday, 20 July 2008 : Dignes les Bains - Prato Nevoso (Italy) - 216km, Prato Nevoso is 1440m altitude.
Monday, 21 July 2008 : Rest Day
Tuesday, 22 July 2008 : Cunéo - Jausiers (la vallée de l’Ubaye) 157km - inc Lombarde, Bonnette-Restefond (2802m)
Wednesday, 23 July 2008: Embrun - L’Alpe D’Huez - 210km - inc. Galibier, Croix-de-Fer
Thursday, 24 July 2008 : Bourg d’Oisans - St Etienne - 197km
Friday, 25 July 2008 : Roanne - Montluçon - 163km
Saturday, 26 July 2008 : Cérilly - St Amand-Montrond - 53km Individual Time Trial
Sunday, 27 July 2008 : Etampes - Paris - 143km
Director Christian Prudhomme takes the stage… Le Grand Depart starts in Brittany in 2008, as we know. We’re now welcomed by the president of that region. Get on with the good stuff!
Patrice Clerc, President of Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), welcomes us.
First up is a stirring video review of the 2007 Tour.
11:30am sharp - it’s starting!
Bikestyle is in Paris, at the Palais des Congres - we’re waiting for the presentation to start.
We already know that it’s starting in Brittany on the 5th July 2008 and making a clockwise loop around France, but for the full details you’ll have to wait just a bit longer.
Hello cycling fans,
Can you get yourself to Paris on October 25th 2007 (that’s next Thursday)? If you live in mainland Europe or the UK and would like a free* ticket to the TdF Presentations in Paris, drop Lawrie an email (lawrie@bikestyletours.com) today with your request and a sentence or two about why you’d like to go, plus a mailing address.
* This ticket will give you entry to the TdF presentation only. Bikestyle Tours can not assist with transport to Paris, and can not refund travel expenses if the tickets do not arrive at your mailing address before 25th October.
Interesting and insightful analysis of the battle for the Lanterne Rouge by Nancy Toby.
Time to roll out the puns and cliches, members of the press! Today saw the second serious dog-related incident of this year’s tour, though it didn’t end so badly for Sandy Casar. In stage 9 we saw Markus Burghardt’s wheel fold under the impact of a tubby blond Labrador going for his customary lunchtime stroll across the road. This time it was a chocolate Labrador (what is it with labs and crossing the road without looking, eh?) who decided to dash across the road in front of Sandy Casar of Française Des Jeux and Frederik Willems of Liquigas. Casar lost a fair bit of skin in a pretty tender place but managed to get up and keep going, but poor Willems was delayed enough to be re-absorbed by the peloton.
As we now know, Casar hung on, using every bit of his remaining strength to best a fading Boogerd, Merckx and Lefèvere for another French win. Meanwhile eight minutes back in the peloton, Discovery managed to fall asleep for long enough for Cadel to gain another three seconds on Contador. What’s that about? It could be a Tour-changing three seconds for both of them!
Keep your eyes on the prize Alberto!
Finally, craft and cycling come together in the Tour de France Knitalong!
If you haven’t made it on one of our Bikestyle Tours trips to the Tour de France this year, there are still plenty of interesting ways to track Le Tour - preferably while you’re at work so you’re accumulating money to come on a trip with us in 2008!
Firstly, you should keep an eye on our blog as we’ll be posting stories live from our trips throughout the Tour - look forward to some pictures and tales from the (Bikestyle) peloton.
As usual I’m enjoying the Cyclingnews live stage coverage, which can be complemented by the Eurosport audio feed and if you’re lucky a live video feed found by the Cyclingfans site - so all media are covered. Google maps visualisations and tracking provides a good view of where the riders are on a particular stage (including heart rate, speed and power output data for a few riders - very cool) , and if you want to find out how hard a particular hill is, you can see the live heart rate data for five different riders on the Polar site.
Of course if you really must work at work, you can view Tour footage at your leisure on the official ASO Le Tour de France YouTube site.
Keep an eye on the blog for more Tour-related internet goodies - I’ll be doing a roundup of the most interesting TdF cycling blogs soon. If you know of any cool stuff yourself, feel free to post a comment below.
Hi, I’m Lucy, and I’m the Bikestyle Tours website coordinator. Having read Sim’s picks, I thought I’d contribute my own - though I’m not as bold as Sim - I don’t think I’m willing to commit to a Top 10, but I will reveal my Fantasy Team picks. At the moment I’m doing very well - but I’m not sure how I’ll go once I hit the real mountains! Here it is:
Overall: Cadel Evans, Frank Schleck
Climbers: Patrick Sinkewitz, Manuel Beltran
Sprinter: Thor Hushovd
Domestiques: Fabian Cancellara, David Zabriskie, and the wonderful Jens Voigt!
Wildcard: Tom Boonen
Interesting and insightful analysis of the battle for the Lanterne Rouge by Nancy Toby.
Finally, craft and cycling come together in the Tour de France Knitalong!
