Arrghh! It's real now

The official route for the Tour de France and hence l’etape du tour 2009 has just been published. More importantly, the elimination times have also been published. Here is the official route from their website:

First thing to do is check out the elimination times. There are two cut off points:

In Sault after 115Km @ 1pm (which is 5:20 - 6 hours after the start at an average speed of 19-21Kmh depending upon my start time)
In Bedoin (the bottom of the Mt Ventoux climb) at 150.1Km @ 2:55pm (after 7:15-7:55hrs which equates to 19-21Kmh) then you have 3 hours to get to the top. The Final Cut off is at 172.1Km @ 5:55pm (10:15 at 15.8-16.7Kmh). Here is a link to the official route and cut off times.

So I possibly need to average 21Kmh to the bottom of the Mt Ventoux. To put it another way, I have to ride 150Km over 3 “Category 3” Climbs and 1 “Category 4” climb at an average speed of 21Kmh. Then I have to average 7.5Kmh up a “Hors Category” climb for 22Km. Easy Peasy. Maybe not. I have just reviewed my previous blog on this topic and realised I am not in good shape at all. Last years’ l’etape cut off was set to 17.5Kmh, this year (if I ignore the final climb) it is set to 21Kmh. A massive difference. I managed 24Kmh in the Hampshire Hilly Hundred. Ok I was not going full speed and could have gone faster but all the same that is pretty close to the cut off time. I hope I can get in with a group and up my speed. I must check out the etiquette of doing just that. I can see myself avidly watching the first few stages of The Tour to see how steep those Category 3 climbs are.

They have also published the “ravitaillement” or refuelling stops which are at 78Km and 150Km which sounds good. The good news is that there is a liquid refill available after 14Km of the final climb.