On July 7, 2007 the Tour de France 2007 starts with the prologue in London. With a sidetrip through Belgium and one of the stages partly going through Spain (without stopping in the country though), the Tour de France then stops by in several cities in France.
These cities pay a relatively big amount of money to the Tour de France organisation to have the Tour start or finish in their city. This is interesting for those cities since the Tour de France is the third world wide most broadcasted sports event, after the Olympic Games and the World Championship Football, knowing that the Tour is organised each year while the other two are organised only once each 4 years. The Tour de France is being broadcasted, either live or as a recap, in 185 countries around the globe. In addition to that the Tour de France of course also leads to more tourisme in these cities with people spending money during their stay.
UPDATE 7 May 2007: with only 2 months to go before the Tour de France departure from London, I made another round on the different city web sites and that allowed me to find some new information:
- first stage: addition of the Canterbury website (this website already existed but I simply didn't find it when I published the original version of this article)
- second stage: reference to the many events being organised by the city of Gent
- fourth stage: addition of Villers-Cotterêts website and photo exposition in Joigny
- fifth stage: addition of a game 'Grand Jeu de l'Avantour'
- sixth stage: addition of a new article on Semur-en-Auxois' web site and additional information for Bourg-en-Bresse
- seventh/eighth stage: addition of information for Le Grand Bornand
- fourteenth stage: additional information for Mazamet
- sixteenth stage: additional information for Orthez
- seventeenth stage: added information about A chacun son Tour for Pau
- eighteenth stage: addition mini web site for Angoulême
In addition to this, I did some minor modifications such as corrections of some of the links or adding the logos for departure / finish cities for Chablis, Le Grand-Bornand, Val d'Isère, Tallard, Mazamet and Angoulême. With less then 4 months to go before the start of the Tour I made a tour around the websites of the different Tour cities to see how much they communicate around their privilege of being a Tour city. It turns out to be very different from city to city: some cities really see the Tour as a very important event and have reserved a lot of space on their website around it, while others don't mention it at all!! Some websites contain the city council meeting notes and in those cases it's sometimes funny to read that there have been big discussions around the costs and the benefits of the Tour finishing or starting there.
Below, you can find an overview of what a quik tour on the different city websites gives in March 2007. During the following months, I'll regularly update this article with links to information on the websites of the different cities, departments or regions. This article also gives, whenever available, links to detailed stage itineraries and each stage is preceded by the logo which is a link to the page on the Tour website which describes that stage.
London
London has an important role in the Tour de France 2007: as the city where the prologue and the first stage start, London will probably be much more well known by cycling fans after this summer! A special website informs people who are interested about what's going to happen early July in and around London.
The party starts on July 6, 2007 with an opening ceremony on Trafalgar Square in London. This freely accessible party on this big place will probably allow the Tour fever to grow very high rather quickly!
The second stage, on Monday July 9, goes from the Dunkerque in the north of France (in the Nord department in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region) to Gent in Belgium: a distance of about 167 kilometres over the typical roads of the cyclist classics De Ronde van Vlaanderen, Het Volk and Gent-Wevelgem.
The start in Dunkerque is planned to be at 1.25PM and the cyclists will then go through Poperinge, Ieper, Diksmuide, Nieuwpoort, Middelkerke, Gistel, Tielt, Deinze (Wortegem), Bachte-Maria-Leerne and Drongen to Gent where they will go over the Deinsesteenweg, Drongensesteenweg, Rooigemlaan, Einde Were, Antonius Triestlaan, Martelaarslaan, Godshuizenlaan and IJzerlaan to arrive around 5.15PM at the Charles de Kerchovelaan. Based on this information I used Google Maps to create an overview of this stage's itinerary (exclusively based on cities they'll go through, the exact itinerary might be a little bit different).
The third stage, on Tuesday July 10, 2007, will bring the cyclists back from Belgium to France, to Compiègne, in the Oise department, Picardie region over a distance of 236 kilometres. Waregem created a dedicated Tour website on which we can find the whole programme of activities around the Tour which runs since March 5 and will continue till the day on which this Tour stage will take place. On the same website we also find the address of a real Tour shop which recently opened its doors in Waregem.
Not sure whether that's even possible, but it looks like Compiègne has created an even more complete Tour website gemaakt. On this website we find information about the finish of this third stage of the Tour de France 2007, but also a retrospective of the previous Tour stages in this city with a lot of photos and newspaper articles which were published at that time: in 1980 and in 1981.
Nice to know
This third stage of the Tour de France is the longest stage of the Tour de France 2007!
The next day the cyclists will go in 184 kilometres from Chablis in the Yonne to Autun in Saône-et-Loire.
The Yonne department's website contains a dedicated page on the Tour de France, which among others contains an overview of the cities they'll go by during this stage. The same website now also announces a game called Grand Jeu de l'Avantour which allows, by just putting a sticker of the Tour de France in the Yonne on your car, to win several prizes such as a Skoda Fabia!
The previous day's stage arrives here and on July 15 the Tour starts again in Le Grand-Bornand. 165 kilometres from there, this stage arrives in Tignes in the Savoie. Tignes, a skiing area like Le Grand-Bornand, did have enough time to put a dedicated page on its website which includes an overview of the stage's profile and photomontage which welcomes the Tour to Tignes.
Tignes welcomes the Tour. The stage on July 15 arrives in Tignes and on July 16 the cyclists and their followers will spend the rest day here as well.
Tallard is a small city in the Hautes-Alpes with 1500 to 2000 inhabitants (depending on which page of their website you're visiting ;-). Tallard's website is still under construction and when you take a detailed look at it, it seems like it was created especially because of the Tour de France stage starting in Tallard!
The city where this stage finishes, Marseille, a very big city compared to Tallard, doesn't come up with any results on its website when using their search engine to search for 'Tour de France'.
Marseille > Montpellier
Marseille also is the start city of Thursday July 19th stage which will take the cyclists and all the following cars over a distance of 180 kilometres to Montpellier in the Hérault department (Languedoc Roussillon region). Montpellier's website also doesn't contain any information about the Tour de France and when you do a search in their online agenda for events on July 19th, the website simply says there's no event planned on that day ...
Montpellier > Castres
The next day, July 20, the 12th stage also starts in Montpellier. This stage arrives in Castres after 179 kilometres.
Castres very recently added a page about the Tour stage arrival to its website. This page contains a map of the arrival which will be around 5.00PM close to number 14 on Avenue Charles-de-Gaulle. The party in the city will start at 1PM and the advertising caravan will arrive around 3.30PM in Castres.
On July 24 the cyclists will get their second rest day in this Tour. This day will be spent by the cyclists and their followers in Pau.
Orthez > Gourette - Col d'Aubisque
The Orthez to Gourette / Col d'Aubisque stage is another long mountain stage over 218 kilometres. Orthez' website (Pyrénées-Atlantique department, Aquitaine region), contains Orthez' ville départ logo, and now also some information about the start of the stage on July 25th, but unfortunately this page only works correctly when using Internet Explorer :-(.
Gourette's website - Eaux-Bonnes Gourette actually, in the same department and where this Tour stage will finish - contains a dedicated page about 'the event' including an overview of the different mountains which are part of the stage (Col de Larrau, Col de la Pierre Saint-Martin, Col de Marie-Blanque and finally the finish mountain the Col de l'Aubisque). There's not much further information, but maybe that'll change between now and July 25th!
Cahors, in the Lot, has created a dedicated mini-site within its own website. Although this site is pretty difficult to find, it gives a pretty complete overview of this stage and a retrospective on the Tour stages in Cahors in 1994 with the different news paper articles which were published at that time.
On its website, Angoulême recently also created a mini site dedicated to the Tour de France : in its intro Angoulême especially mentions the fact that they've been waiting to get the Tour de France back in the city for over five years ... after 30 years of absence they finally got it back ... and not once but even twice since Angoulême is the finish city for both July 27th as July 28th.
Cognac > Angoulême
For the forelast day of the Tour we'll again see an individual time trial (as usual) which takes the cyclists in 55 kilometres from Cognac to Angoulême.
Cognac dedicated an article about this in its Cognac Le Mag' in December 2006 on page 18.
The arrival in Angoulême might be quite exciting, since it will probably heavily influence the final ranking of the Tour de France 2007 ...
Marcoussis > Paris - Champs-Elysées
After a trip by TGV from Angoulême to Parijs, the final stage on Sunday July 29 starts in Marcoussis. While Marcoussis is at only 37 kilometres from Paris, this stage is 130 kilometres long!
This stage is usually not very important for the final ranking and is often used to have some fun in the peloton.
For Paris the arrival of the Tour has become that ordinary that the website paris.fr doesn't talk about it at all (yet). Marcoussis doesn't mention the start of this final Tour stage on its website either.
At the end of these 3 weeks of Tour de France the cyclists, their followers and the advertising caravan will have went over a distance of 3547 kilometres ... we'll see who will be able to celebrate that in a yellow jersey on the Champs Elysées!!
Did you find any further information about the Tour de France on any other website and which might be interesting to complete this article or to write a new article, please let me know by posting your comment below!! by Thomas Vergouwen
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Je n'ai pas encore essayé tous les liens. Dans tous les cas bravo pour ce travail de recherche qui a du te prendre pas mal de temps. C'est vrai que le site de Compiègne est excellent. Il faut dire qu'avec le départ de Paris-Roubaix depuis des années la ville est très orientée vélo.
Je pense bien aller voir l'arrivée là-bas à et le départ à Villers Cotterets le lendemain. Franchement la place du Chateau s'adapate parfaitement bien.
Encore bravo, les sites seront à aller revoir en Juin car souvent les mairies mettent en ligne leur programme d'animations et d'expositions.
Merci pour tes encouragements, ça fait toujours plaisir :-). Il est vrai que ça m'a pris pas mal de temps de mettre ensemble toutes ces infos, mais je pense que ça vaut le coup d'avoir tout ensemble ici !
Je ferai un autre petit tour sur le web encore quelques fois d'ici le début du Tour et j'essaierai donc d'enrichir cet article au fur et à mesure des informations publiées sur les sites des villes en question. Si cet article peut inciter certaines villes d'en parler sur leur site alors qu'ils n'en parlent pas encore pour l'instant ça serait alors encore mieux ;-)
Salut Thomas !
Merci pour ta réponse. Pour avoir fait des recherches de photos de véhicules les années passées auprès des sites des partenaires, tu verras que le sujet est traité très différemment par chacun. LCL par exemple a quelques pages sur son partenariat (longtemps elles sont restées les mêmes 2 ou 3 ans peut-être). PMU n'a rien d espécial mais organise un jeu de pronostic pendant le Tour. Champion propose des réduction sur ses produits mais pas grand chose d'autres sur le partenariat. Des 4 partanaires principaux Skoda est certainement le plus complet (photo, vidéos etc...). Chez les autres c'est très très différent. Cochonou a innové l'an dernier grâce à son blog...Il y a bien eu des blogs des caravanes Totally London, Aquarel, La vache qui rit mais ceux-ci sont pas très tournés vers le public et n'ont pas évolué depuis Septemebre ! Tiens celà me donne une idée de sondage sur le mien....
Oui, effectivement ... pour d'autres besoins (que je dévoilera peut-être bientôt ici ;-), j'ai déjà fait un tour très rapide sur les sites des marques et j'avais effectivement remarqué que la aussi il y a une grande disparité comme tu le dis ! Ceci dit, je trouve que ça reste pour la plupart quand même très limité et qu'ils ne profitent pas vraiment à fond de leur partenariat avec le Tour de France ... peut-être un jour on va pouvoir faire changer ça ;-).
Bon, je vais répondre à ton sondage !
Merci en tout cas pour le lien depuis ton site vers cet article :-)
Excellent travail sur la communication des diverses villes-étapes du Tour 2007.
Je revisiterai régulièrement tous ces sites jusqu'en juillet prochain pour découvrir l'évolution de leur communication.Pour ma part j'ai réalisé un site sur la Grande Boucle de 1947 à nos jours en renvoyant également de nombreuses villes étapes vers les sites des villes concernées.
| Joel Rambault | wednesday 11 April 2007 at 21:31:50
Bonjour Joel !
Merci pour ces encouragements, ça fait toujours plaisir :-).
Ton site est très riche en information ! On y trouve vraiment beaucoup de choses très intéressantes et ça doit être un boulot assez important pour le tenir à jour pendant et après chaque Tour !!
Sinon, bientôt peut-être un petit scoop sur ce blog ... donc, n'hésite pas à t'inscrire pour la newsletter du site ;-) !
Merci pour cette info Pascal ! Je viens de mettre à jour l'article avec cette info et avec encore pas mal d'autres infos de villes qui ont mis en ligne d'autres renseignements sur le Tour de France qui arrive ou part de leur ville !!
Je voulais justement aller voir les différents sites de nouveau le week-end prochain pour voir ce qui a changé depuis ma dernière mise à jour ... J'ai rapidement regardé sur le site de Castres mais je n'y trouve pas les documents sur le Tour 1994 à Castres ?!
Mon Tour 2007 se prépare plutôt bien, ça me prend pas mal de temps en ce moment ... il faudrait que je t'appelle un de ces jours pour te faire un petit update !
Oupss...J'ai fait celà de mémoire c'est Cahors et en plus celà était déjà écrit sur ton site... Donc pas grand chose de neuf.
Désolé pour la fausse information...A +
many information (great)
One info is missing the weather. on http://eu.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/tourdefrance you can see the current radar images and a detailed forecast for the next 24 hours.