The 2011 cycling season is already about to start and one of the first French stage races will as usually take place in March with Paris-Nice 2011. Usually, it's organisor Amaury Sports Organisation (ASO), announces the route of the race to the sun which it took over from Laurent Fignon early in the year.

Today I propose you to discover a sneak peek on the stage cities of this 69th edition of Paris-Nice.

Many people asked me to work on this but for several reasons I didn't get a chance to publish this so far; that's now corrected: the "rumours" - if we can call them like that since the source of many of them is very official - anyway ... the rumours on the Paris-Nice 2011 route are now online at www.velowire.com. As usual, I will update this article as soon as new information becomes available.
Paris-Nice 2011 will take place from 6 till 13 March 2011 (as you already knew from the 2011 UCI cycling calendar) between Houdan and Nice.

In 2010, the Yvelines departement signed a contract with A.S.O. for the organisation of the Paris-Nice prologue for 4 years. It'll thus be until 2013 that one of the cities of this department will receive the start of the race to the sun. In 2011 it will be Houdan's turn.

Sunday 6 March 2011 - 1/ the prologue: in Houdan

The city of Houdan announces this itself on the web site of the Communauté des communes du pays Houdanais.
The title of the article is a bit tricky (it mentions Paris-Nice 2010) but it's indeed the 2011 edition which will start from the Pays Houdanais, with a prologue.

Even though it was generally thought (and also written in Houdan's article) that this would be a prologue around the city in the Yvelines, the web site larep.com mentions a 60 km loop around the city which will be done three times

Monday 7 March 2011 - 2/ Montfort-l'Amaury > Amilly

The second stage of this 69th edition of Paris-Nice announces the comeback of two cities which have played an important role in the recent history of the race to the sun. Indeed, in 2010, the prologue took place in Montfort-l'Amaury and in the 2 previous years the riders started there quest for the sun in Amilly.

In 2011 the second stage will connect these two cities because it will take place between Montfort-l'Amaury and Amilly. The start was announced by the Yvelines department in its newsletter of the Conseil Général.

In this same newsletter we learn that several activities will be organised in Houdan on 5 and 6 March 2011, just like last year in Montfort-l'Amaury with activities under the name Fête du vélo ! Faites du vélo !. 3 distances will be proposed for an amateur cycling race (30, 80 and 110 km) and a 40 km mountain bike race will also be on the programme. Other activities will take place in the village set up by the Conseil Général in Houdan.

In 2010 these activities and this village were a big success as we can see in the internal video of the Yvelines department:

According to the web site of the city Amilly the finish will be at the Espace Jean-Vilar in the rue de la Mère-Dieu.

Early December, the web site larep.com gave the first information about the route of this stage which will be in the Loiret department for 123 kilometers. Indeed, the riders will leave the Île-de-France region to get to the Centre region and the Loiret department at kilometer 75.5 around noon, and visit Puiselet, Andonville, Allainville-en-Beauce, Charmont-en-Beauce, Armeville, Guigneville, Pithiviers, Dadonville, Courcelles, Nancray-sur-Rimarde, Boiscommun, Montliard, Quiers-sur-Bézonde, Bellegarde, Beauchamps-sur-Huillard, Lorris, Montereau, Varennes-Changy, Nogent-sur-Vernisson, Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, Châtillon-Coligny, La Chapelle-sur-Aveyron, Château-Renard, Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Amilly where the finish could take place around 4.30PM.

Tuesday 8 March 2011 - 3/ Cosnes-Cours-sur-Loire > Nuits-Saint-Georges

For the 3rd stage, the city Cosnes-Cours-sur-Loire voted during its city council meeting on December 22nd a maximum budget of 20,332€ to be paid to A.S.O. for the organisation of the stage start.

This information had already been announced by leJDC.fr on 10 July this year.

The Journal de Saône-et-Loire learned us at the end of November that the finish of this stage will be in Nuits-Saint-Georges, thus ignoring Châlon-sur-Saône which wanted to use Paris-Nice to get ready for a possible Tour de France visit (because of the lack of budget) but also Chardonnay and Viré-Lugny which apparently had been contacted.

Wednesday 9 March 2011 - 4/ Crêches-sur-Saône > Belleville

According to the web site loisirs-beaujolais.fr, Paris-Nice 2011's fourth stage will be exclusively Beaujolais based. Ineed, it should take place between Crêche-sur-Saône and Belleville.

For the start in Crêches-sur-Saône, Le Bien Public copied the information about the finish in Nuits-Saint-Georges from the Journal de Saône-et-Loire but adding the information about this stage start.

Concerning the race route of this stage, loisirs-beaujolais.fr indicates that it will visit the Haut-Beaujolais, the Beaujolais viticole and the Beaujolais des Pierres Dorées and municipalities like Saint-Amour, Cogny, Saint-Etienne des Oullières, Saint-Julien, Odenas, Régnié-Durette, Villié-Morgon, Juliénas, Fleurie, including of course the climb of the col du Fût d'Avenas where the view is so nice in bright weather conditions.

Thursday 10 March 2011 - 5/ Saint-Symphorien-sur-Coise > Vernoux-en-Vivarais

UPDATE 2 January 2011: during the November (§ 3.2) and the December (§ 3.3) meetings the city council of Saint-Symphorien-sur-Coise, west of Lyon and organisor of a stage finish of the Tour de l'Avenir in 2008, discussed the start of the 5th stage of Paris-Nice 2011 as suggested by ASO. In the minutes of the December meeting we can read that there is no concrete sponsoring or public money dedicated to this event but that the city council has accepted to receive the Race to the sun anyway. The financial participation of the city, initially equal to € 17,000 has been re-estimated at € 15.000 excluding VAT. This stage start is now being confirmed by online event agendas like Rhône Tourisme, local.fr and id2sorties.com.

For the finish of this stage, Tc comment on this article tonight led me in the right direction: the website of the city Vernoux-en-Vivarais announces the city will receive the finish of this stage.

Friday 11 March 2011 - 6/ ITT Aix-en-Provence : Rognes > Puyricard

UPDATE 30 December 2010: Cyclism'Actu which, as usual for most of its articles, wrote an article yesterday which was largely inspired on this one to announce the rumours about the Paris-Nice 2011 route, today announced it got further information about the 5th or 6th stage.

Some real journalistic work quickly learned that the web site with events in Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur indicates that the 6th stage of Paris-Nice 2011 will take place as an individual time trial close to Aix-en-Provence. It will actually not really be in Aix because the start will be Rognes with riders starting each minute from 1.30PM and going towards the finish on the Boulevard de Palerne in Puyricard. The last rider should finish his individual effort around 4.30PM.

This information was more or less revealed by the La Provence newspaper on 16 July already.

As a reminder: Aix-en-Provence already received the finish of the 5th stage of Paris-Nice 2010. Furthermore we can notice that it's quite rare to see an individual time trial in Paris-Nice (except for the prologue). For the last individual time trial we have to go back to 2003 and the time trial around Vergèze (Source Perrier), which was won by Dario Frigo (Fasso Bortolo). For a time trial this late in the Paris-Nice route we have to go back to 2001 when the forelast stage was a quite difficult time trial climbing from Nice to the Col d'Eze, which was also won by Dario Frigo!
Who will succeed the Italian rider in 2011?

Saturday 12 March 2011 - 7/ Brignoles > Biot

The city Biot very recently published an article in which it announced that the city Biot will receive, for the very first time in the 69 year long history, the finish of the forelast stage of the Paris-Nice cycling race, indicating at the same time that it would start in Brignoles in the Var.

The finish in Biot will be close to the Funel roundabout, route des Colles and the riders will cross the finish line twice, to end the stage at around 4.30PM.

The city Biot also announced that several activities around the cycling sport will be organised on the finish line, the whole day long. A giant screen (...) will allow visitors to see the last hour of the race, live and commented by the famous « voice of the Tour », Daniel Mangeas.

Sunday 13 March 2011 - 8/ Nice > Nice

The last stage will, as usual, be a loop around the city of Nice. On Sunday 13 March 2011 at the end of the afternoon we'll thus know the 69th winner of Paris-Nice there on the Promenade des Anglais.

The table of the stages of 2011 Paris-Nice

Paris-Nice 2011 will be composed of 8 stages which will follow the route as shown in the table below:

#	date	start	finish
1	Su. 6 March 2011	Houdan	Houdan
2	Mo. 7 March 2011	Montfort-l'Amaury	Amilly
3	Tu. 8 March 2011	Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire	Nuits-Saint-Georges
4	We. 9 March 2011	Crêches-sur-Saône	Belleville
5	Th. 10 March 2011	Saint-Symphorien-sur-Coise	Vernoux-en-Vivarais
6	Fr. 11 March 2011	Rognes	Puyricard
		time trial Aix-en-Provence
7	Sa. 12 March 2011	Brignoles	Biot
8	Su. 13 March 2011	Nice	Nice

The official presentation of the 2011 Paris-Nice race route

You just discovered the full list of stage cities for Paris-Nice 2011, the 69th edition.

However, officially, the Paris-Nice 2011 race route will be presented on
Tuesday 1st of February 2011 at 11.00AM

at the Conseil Général des Yvelines in Versailles

(entry by invitation from ASO only)

source images : illustration article © www.velowire.com, logo Houdan : Communauté des Communes du Pays Houdanais, blason Montfort-l'Amaury : Henrysalome, logo Amilly : Ville d'Amilly, logo Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire : Mairie Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire, blason Nuits-Saint-Georges : Bruno Vallette, logo Crêches-sur-Saône : Ville de Crêches-sur-Saône, blason Belleville : Communauté des Communes Beaujolais Val de Saône, blason de Brignoles : Ville de Brignoles, logo Biot : Mairie de Biot, logo Nice : Ville de Nice

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: Paris-Nice | Paris-Nice 2011

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