Monday 17 October 2016 at 19h43
article initially published on 23 September at 8.10AM, updated on 25 September at 10.36PM, on 27 September at 7.34AM, 8.20AM and 9.58PM, on 28 September at 7.45AM and at 2.15PM, on 4 October at 10.25PM, on 5 October at 8.55AM, on 6 October at 10.40AM, on 7 October at 12.15PM, on 11 October at 10.05PM, on 13 October at 10.10PM, on 14 October at 9.25AM, on 15 October at 12.45PM, on 16 October at 2.30PM and on 17 October at 9.47AM and at 7.43PM
While the official presentation will only take place on 18 October in the "Palais des Congrès" in Paris, you are used to find here early September the first rumours about the race route of the Tour de France to come, in this case the Tour de France 2017 which will take place from Saturday 1st of July till Sunday 23 July 2017. This year this article has been published a bit later than usual, for personal reasons (without the encouraging comment about this article from someone I ran into [who will recognise himself] at the start of the last stage of the Tour this year, I probably would have never published this article at all), but as usual, we will discover in the upcoming days and weeks the whole race route of the 104th edition of the Tour!
In this article you might find mentions of rumours which could develop or being overruled by other rumours, but the map only shows the stages which really seem to be possible to be confirmed. Little by little, this article will get completer and will give - at least I hope so - the full race route before the 18th of October ... What seems to be the future race route looks quite complicated on a map, starting in Düsseldorf in Germany, going west via Belgium and down south via Luxembourg towards France via the Vosges, followed by a transfer by plane to the south-west of France, followed by the Pyrenees and the Alps to finish off. Once again, alternating the Alps and Pyrenees mountain chains (which is in no way obligatory or contractual!) would again not be respected because, like in 2015 and 2016, the race would finish in the Alps, before the transfer to Paris.
As far as possible, I'll also share any possible rumours about the "Etape du Tour 2017", the cyclosportive which is organised on the race route of one of the Tour de France 2017 stages.
What's sure: the Grand Départ in Düsseldorf in Germany
As announced by velowire.com right from November 2015 and confirmed on 22 December 2015 (and officially presented on 14 January 2016), the Tour de France 2017 will start in Düsseldorf in Germany, a country where the Tour had its last Grand Départ 30 years ago.An initial time trial and the start of the first stage in line will thus take place in Düsseldorf.
The programme of the Grand Départ of the Tour de France 2017 is thus quite classical, with:
- Wednesday 28 June 2017: the Permanence and the press room officially open in the Messe Düsseldorf
- Thursday 29 June 2017: teams presentation of the Tour de France 2017 on the Burgplatz
- Saturday 1 July 2017: first stage, as an individual time trial - Düsseldorf > Düsseldorf - 13 km
- Sunday 2 July 2017: second stage - with start in Düsseldorf, and with an officially unknown destination
Concerning the second stage, the first stage in line, only the stage start city - the Grand Départ city - has officially been announced in January 2016. On 22 April 2016, A.S.O. has however sent out a press release indicating that the hints will be distributed little by little concerning the Tour de France 2017 track. That "little by little" distribution has come to an end immediately after that, but in this press release, the organisor of the Tour announced that a part of the programme of this second stage had been announced in company of the Mayor of Düsseldorf, Thomas Geisel, and of the Mayor of Mönchengladbach, Hans Wilhelm Reiners. Indeed, the press release indicated that after a loop of around fifty kilometers around Düsseldorf which had been announced initially (with the first climb of the race, the Grafenberg), the first intermediate sprint of the Tour 2017 will (...) symbolically be placed at one of the places typically representing the success of German athletes: the line of this sprint will be in Mönchengladbach, not far from the stadium where the Borussia Mönchengladbach, one of the most successfull football clubs of the country, is located (the "Stadion im Borussia-Park").
After that, things become more incertain and that's where we get to the usual activity of velowire.com in September and October ...
What's next in the Tour de France 2017: the rumours about the stage cities of the 104th Grande Boucle!
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2/ Sunday 2 July 2017 - Düsseldorf (DE) > Luik/Liège (BE)
From Düsseldorf, after the loop around the city of the Grand Départ, the stage goes west, with the sprint in Mönchengladbach as officially announced, and according to the rumours it should finish in Verviers in Belgium, as we could read on the 27th of May 2016 already in the Belgian newspaper L'Avenir (also published by La Meuse), which reminded that the last visit of the Tour de France to Verviers was in 1976! More recently, after the Tour de France 2016, Sud Info also published this information again.However, very recently, on the 21st of September, L'Avenir published a new version of its information (without any mention of its previous version which thus seems to be wrong), announcing that this stage would finish in Liège (Luik). Since this information seems quite sure according to the Belgian newspaper and since it's more recent than the previous ones and republished by Het Laatste Nieuws, L1 Limburg which mentions that province of Limbourg in The Netherlands also being a candidate, Het Nieuwsblad, La Dernière Heure and Le Soir, I take this as the current information.
The German newspapers talked about two other places being possibly visited by this stage. Looking at the map between Düsseldorf, Mönchengladbach and Liège, it seems most logical to believe that Kreis-Heinsberg has bigger chances to be on the race route than Nettetal.
In the context of this finish which almost seems to be confirmed in Belgium, the hope of the city of Breda or Den Bosch or more generally the province of Noord-Brabant in The Netherlands to receive the Tour de France right from 2017 thus seems to be quite hopeless and even for 2018 it seems almost impossible since it's highly unprobable that the Tour will be in this area two years in a row.
3/ Monday 3 July 2017 - Verviers (BE) > Esch-sur-Alzette (LU) Longwy
As indicated by the article mentioned above from Sud Info, the next stage would most probably start in Marche-en-Famenne in Belgium. As mentioned two days earlier by the L'Avenir newspaper, this city was the start city of la Flèche Wallonne on 20 April this year and this could thus have been a good test to verify the capacity of the city to receive a stage start of the Tour de France in 2017, like the organisor A.S.O. often does by using its different other races.However, there again, the article from L'Avenir on the 21st of September updates this information, indicating that the start of this stage will be in Verviers.
The finish of this stage should be in Luxembourg,
The final part of the stage should not be one of the easiest, since A.S.O. showed in the past few years that it wants to create some suspense and to have the yellow jersey change from one rider to another every day during the first week, with a finish at Belval, after having climbed the Col de l'Europe according to wort.lu, Le Quotidien and L'Essentiel.
Another article by L'Essentiel provides further details about what the stage could look like, mentioning a visit of Wiltz, the city where the father of François Faber, the first Luxembourgish winner of the Tour de France in 1909, comes from, and going on via Mersch, where Bob Jungels, best young rider of the last Tour of Italy, was born, finally followed by Mamer, the birth city of Nicolas Frantz, Luxembourgish winner of the Grande Boucle in 1927 and 1928. THe final part of this stage would go over the Col de l'Europe in Differdange, followed by a finish on the boulevard Porte de France, in Esch-Belval. This was apparently the proposal of the Luxembourgish authorities when they announced they were a candidate and it's thus not sure yet that A.S.O. will indeed exactly follow this track.
UPDATE 27 September at 8.20AM: finally, the finish which seemed guaranteed for Esch-sur-Alzette will not take place in Esch-sur-Alzette. Indeed, according to Le Quotidien, A.S.O. informed the Luxembourgish city that the Tour will not stop here, at least not in 2017.Later in the day, Luxemburger Wort also confirmed the information that Esch-sur-Alzette will not receive the Tour, talking about a press release from the city which said the following: The city Esch was a candidate and suggested 3 different stage proposals for a race entering the "Grand-Duché de Luxembourg" coming from Belgium. All these proposals contained «selective elements» (difficulties) in the thirty last kilometers of the race before the finish, in order to prevent the stage to finish with a sprint in Esch-Belval. These difficulties, as requested by the organisor, contained between one and three climbs of 2.6% to 9% steep. The organisor now comes with a new argument indicating that it's impossible to have a finish uphill in Esch-sur-Alzette. So far, an uphill finish has never been mentioned by the organisor because otherwise, since there's no steep climb in Esch, the city Esch-sur-Alzette would never have maintained its candidacy, knowing that the climb towards the «Gaalgebierg» via the «Dieswee» had been judged impossible by the technical representatives of the Tour de France.
UPDATE 28 September at 7.45AM: today, the day after the announcement of the cancellation of the finish in Esch-sur-Alzette, Le Républicain Lorrain and Vosges Matin mention a possible finish in Longwy, where Anthony Roux won a stage of the Circuit de Lorraine in 2011. Longwy is just on the other side of the border (in France), just west of Esch-sur-Alzette and this would thus not really change the race route of this stage. However, some articles reminded yesterday that Longwy had financial difficulties and would thus not be able to pay a Tour stage finish! According to Le Républicain Lorrain, Longwy is no longer under surveillance since May and offers a spectacular stage finish.UPDATE 28 September at 2.15PM: the Luxembourgish newspaper L'Essentiel seems to indicate that the Luxembourgish authorities think about a similar solution, saying that a big part of the stage could take place in Luxembourg anyway, with a finish just across the border.
UPDATE 4 October at 10.25PM: France Bleu Sud Lorraine published an article last Friday confirming the finish in Longwy and a visit of Vittel. The most funny thing in this article is probably the part where it talks about hotel bookings. Indeed, France Bleu indicates that cycling teams have put an option on a possible booking in their hotel, insisting that these are only options for now. The journalist apparently doesn't know that for a stage race like the Tour de France it's the responsibility of the organisor to take into account the housing of the teams and the teams thus don't do any hotel bookings based on rumours!
4/ Tuesday 4 July 2017 - Mondorf-les-Bains (LU) > Vittel ??? (or Metz ???)
Concerning the start of the 4th stage, things apparently all seem to be clear if we believe the Luxembourgish media. Indeed, to get there, the riders and the followers of the Tour would cross Grand-Duché from west to east to go to the start in Mondorf-les-Bains (or Munneref as our Luxembourgish friends say). Indeed, that's what mentioned RTL Luxembourg in its edition "5 minutes" on 12 July already, and it was also mentioned in its Luxembourgish version. On 13 July the newspaper Le Quotidien again mentioned this possibility, while L'Essentiel reminded that this is the city of the Andy and Frank Schleck brothers while France 3 Lorraine published this same information on 22 July 2016 when Le Quotidien mentioned it again, indicating this time that it was confirmed!From there, the border with France will soon be crossed and we'll go off towards the first finish on the French territory. De là, la frontière avec la France sera vite traversée et on se dirige alors vers la première arrivée dans l'hexagone. UPDATE 28 September at 2.15PM: the article in L'Essentiel today mentions a possible border crossing to France via Schengen, the location which became famous on 14 June 1985, when the agreement removing the European border controls was signed, thus created what is now called the « Schengen area ». For this finish, apparently the city of Vittel would be the winning candidate, with the Tour coming back after the stage start in 2009 in the city of the official water supplier of the Tour (the Vittel brand of Nestlé Waters, for who I usually work in the Tour, signed a new sponsorship contract as a member of the "Club du Tour de France", sponsorship which is currently ongoing until 2018). That's what Vosges Matin mentioned on 27 July and La Plaine des Vosges did the same the next day.
Several media however mention Metz, in 2017 or 2018, for example Le Républicain Lorrain which mentions a 42nd visit of the city and even mentions a possible time trial (also announced by L'Ami Hebdo based on this same information). The same newspaper mentioned this again two days later, just like LorActu another few days later. However, considering the distance between Mondorf-les-Bains and Metz, it's highly unprobable that Metz will get this, unless it would be a time trial following an almost straight line which would lead to quite an important distance anyway (> 50 km) or for a stage in line with a big detour in order to get to a decent distance. For now, it doesn't really seem probable that Metz will appear on the map of the Tour de France 2017 and Vittel could well receive the stage finish but also the start the next day.
(Gérardmer Info/Remiremont Info is the only one to talk about a possible finish in Gerardmer or Epinal)
5/ Wednesday 5 July 2017 - Vittel > La Planche des Belles Filles
Indeed, the same sources which announce a finish in Vittel on 4 July also announce a stage start from the city of the mineral water the next day, L'Est Républicain again mentioning it on 28 July.According to France Bleu Besançon on 19 July, the destination of this stage would be La Planche des Belles Filles, which the Tour would visit for the 3rd time after 2012 and 2014. This year, Yves Kratinger, the president of the Conseil départemental de Haute-Saône who managed to get the construction of the road which allowed this finish to take place in 2012 voted, would like to have the stage which finishes in this station to show the views of the department and mainly the territory of the 1,000 lakes.
This information was more recently published by La Presse de Gray/La Presse de Vesoul, who more generally talked about the Haute Saône.
UPDATE 11 October at 10.05PM: France Bleu again talks about this stage Vittel > La Planche des Belles Filles and the following stages, after having interviewed Michel Galmiche, the mayor of Plancher-les-Mines, the city at the foot of the station:
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6/ Thursday 6 July 2017 : Belfort Vesoul > Troyes
UPDATE 4 October at 10.25PM: while we could already have some doubts about a stage start in Belfort due to the long distance (even though it was not impossible, other stages with a similar distance have been part of the Tour these past few years and the km 0 of the stage could be placed a bit further from the initial start to reduce the distance), Est Républicain explains that it'll finally probably be Vesoul which will see the start of this 6th stage. Est Républicain also reconfirms the finish at La Planche des Belles Filles the day before.UPDATE 27 September at 9.58PM: if we must believe the paying article of Est Eclair, the finish of this stage could be in Troyes and it would thus be a stage which would go for a side trip towards the west. This finish in Troyes corresponds to the hotel reservations as announced by CYRILLE95 for the night of 6 on 7 July.UPDATE 28 September at 9.57AM: that's also what L'Union mentions today, after having called the different hotels of the city and having realised that they are all fully booked.
7/ Friday 7 July 2017 : Nuits-Saint-Georges Troyes > Nuits-Saint-Georges
According to France Bleu Bourgogne several hotel reservations have been made in Nuits-Saint-Georges and surroundings. This could thus be for a stage finish on the 6th or a stage start the next day, or even both. That's what Le Bien Public also talked about the day after the publication from France Bleu. This Thursday 22 septembre, the article of France 3 Franche-Comté confirmed that it would be a stage start and In this city, Paris-Nice had a stage finish in 2011.
UPDATE 27 September at 9.58PM : following the information from Est Eclair this stage would rather start in Troyes and could thus finish in Nuits-Saint-Georges, close to the planned stage start the next day.UPDATE 29 September at 2.31PM: that's also what Le Bien Public now indicates, saying that a finish has finally been requested by the organisation managed by Christian Prudhomme and Thierry Gouvenou.
UPDATE 4 October at 10.25PM: France 3 Bourgogne now also announces a finish in Nuits-Saint-Georges and does that in a way that one could think that they were the first to discover this information!
8/ Saturday 8 July 2017 : Dole > Les Rousses
Still according to the article of France 3 Franche-Comté, the stage after the one close to Belfort would take place between Dole and the ski station Les Rousses. This information also seems to be announced by the Le Progrès newspaper which mentions a 100% Jura stage (information also published by L'Est Républicain in a paying article).9/ Sunday 9 July 2017 : Montbrison ??? Nantua > (Auvergne) ??? Chambéry
UPDATE 27 September at 7.34AM : according to an article in the Dauphiné Libéré today, the stage on 9 July 2017 would take place between Nantua and Chambéry. For Nantua, this would be a first ever stage start in the Tour de France and according to the local newspaper, this stage would go past two difficulties which are the Grand Colombier and the Mont du Chat!Later this day, La Voix de l'Ain also confirmed this stage, mentioning a start in Nantua close to the lake, a usual start location for the Tour de l'Ain. For what follows, the Voix de l'Ain newspaper mentioned a visit of the Col de la Biche before the Grand Colombier and the Mont du Chat.
UPDATE 28 September at 7.45AM: the next day, this morning, Le Dauphiné Libéré published a new article in which the newspaper provides some further details about this stage. According to the Dauphiné, this stage would go towards the col de Bérentin and then go back down to the dam in Génissiat via Cuvéry, Ochiaz and Billiat before a short side-trip to the Haute-Savoie and the climb of the col de la Biche followed by the Grand Colombier, taken from Virieu-le-Petit! Which means the hardest of the four sides with a part going up to 22%! After the difficult climb of the Mont du Chat, the riders would immediately go on to the finish in Chambéry after the descent.
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R1/ Monday 10 July 2017 : rest day in Périgueux
According to the information you can discover for stage 10 below, the riders would fly off from10/ Tuesday 11 July 2017 : Périgueux > Bergerac
According to the Sud Ouest newspaper (and the same article with another layout), the 10th stage would start in Périgueux and visit Montignac, Lascaux [showing off Lascaux 4, the international art center which will open on 15 December this year?] , Sarlat, Domme and the whole Dordogne valley towards Bergerac.France Bleu also took over this information, reminding that the president of the Conseil Départemental de la Dordogne, Germinal Peiro, published a tweet after he met Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour de France, clearly mentioning the goal to have the Tour 2017 in the Dordogne department:
Rencontre avec @ChPrudhomme pour un #TDF2017 en #Dordogne #Tourisme #Sport #Cyclisme pic.twitter.com/enjlx3a6WG
— Germinal Peiro (@germinalpeiro) June 14, 2016
11/ Wednesday 12 July 2017 : Eymet > Pau
Still according to Sud Ouest, who already mentioned a possible comeback to Pau in 2017 before (as a reminder, Pau is one of the most visited cities in the Tour!), the 11th stage of the Tour de France 2017 would start in Eymet about twenty kilometers south of Bergerac. From the small town with less than 3,000 inhabitants, the riders would go off to Pau, information which was also confirmed by La République des Pyrénées.UPDATE 25 September at 10.36PM : The Twitter account of the Tour officially announced the venue of the Tour 2017 in Pau with the following tweet this Friday:?? #TDF2017 ?? @LeTour est déjà passé par là et y sera de retour en 2017 / has already been there and it will be back in 2017. pic.twitter.com/h010d14ZHK
— Le Tour de France (@LeTour) September 23, 2016
12/ Thursday 13 July 2017 : Pau > Peyragudes
UPDATE 5 October at 8.55AM: according to un article payant de La République des Pyrénées, Pau would not only see the stage finish on 12 July but also a stage start the next day. It'll thus be this 12th stage on Thursday 13 July which should start in Pau.UPDATE 27 September at 9.58PM: According to La Dépêche, the Tour de France 2017 would come back to the ski station of Peyragudes, after the finish which took place there in 2012. The newspaper indicated that this would be the occasion to celebrate the 20 years of the James Bond movie "Tomorrow Never Dies" being filmed there.UPDATE 7 October at 12.15PM: the La Nouvelle République des Pyrénées newspaper also seems to confirm the information about a finish at Peyragudes today, and it even announces that this stage would see the climbs of the Port de Balès and the col de Peyresourde, like in 2012. This newspaper also mentions the "anniversary' of the shooting of the James Bond movie and a finish at the altiport, but it's highly unprobable that A.S.O. chose this finish location for that reason. However, the organisor of the Tour might have decided that they want the stage to finish at the altiport, and the newspaper reminds that in that case the climb is steep: 340 m at 17 % and that the few meters which separate the road from the tarmac need to be transformed in a road ...
UPDATE 15 October at 12.45PM: according to the latest article by La Dépêche, this stage would do a side-trip to the Haute-Garonne and would then contain the climb of the cols du Comminges, les Ares, le Menté and the Port de Balès (...) followed by the climb of the Peyresourde.
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13/ Friday 14 July 2017 : Saint-Girons > Foix
That's thus how the race enters the Pyrenees, but for the Pyrenean stages there's not much reliable information available for now.UPDATE 4 October at 10.25PM: According to La Dépêche, the Pyrenean programme would contain a finish in Foix just after the climb of the Mur de Péguère, where the race was disturbed by nails on the road in 2012, and a start the next day in Saint-Girons. The same article also mentions Pau, Luchon and Rodez ...
UPDATE 15 October at 12.45PM: according to a new article by La Dépêche last night, the stage would finally take place directly between those two cities: starting in Saint-Girons and going towards Foix, via some of the several potential climbs (Latrape, la Core, le Port, le mur de Péguère...).UPDATE 16 October at 2.30PM: today, La Dépêche goes even further and announces the race route of this stage which should, according to the newspaper, be only about 100 kilometers long and contain 4 climbs which would be the Col de Latrape, the Col d'Agnes, the Col des Caougnous which goes on in the Mur de Péguère and the Col des Marrous. The newspaper furthermore seems to indicate a change in the type of stages in the Tour de France, a change which already started in the previous years with some exceptional quite short stages and with several difficulties: A stage profile of about one hundred kilometers which promisses a race which is difficult to control by the teams. Punch and courage rather than long and boring transitions with attacks in the last kilometers. It promises to be breath taking. And it migh well be possible that other stages with similar profiles come up to make this edition 2017 interesting.
14/ Saturday 15 July 2017 : (around Toulouse) ??? Blagnac > Rodez
Leaving the Pyrenees, the stage start of the 14th stage on Saturday 15 July 2017 would be close to Toulouse according to La République des Pyrénées.UPDATE 14 October at 9.25AM: in a very short article which is only available in the paper version of the newspaper, La Dépêche announces today (thanks to Pierre for sending me a copy of the article!) that the start of this stage will take place in Blagnac and not in the Bagatelle district of Toulouse as the organisors of the "Média Pitchounes" association hoped for, the association being present in the Tour since 7 years with its project Le Tour au pied des tours. It'll thus be the 8th time that the Tour de France will stop in this city in the outskirts of Toulouse, 5 years after the last start from Blagnac in 2012. In 1984, the Tour stopped there for the first time with a stage finish, and a stage start, going off to ... Rodez! (over 220.5 kilometers with a stage victory for Pierre-Henri Mentheour)Centre Presse Aveyron seems to be sure since 16 September that the finish of this stage will be Rodez.
15/ Sunday 16 July 2017 : Laissac > Le Puy-en-Velay
The same article from Centre Presse Averyon indicates that the 15th stage would start in Laissac, a small town east of Rodez which is now part of the Laissac-Sévérac-l'Église agglomeration.L'Eveil mentioned on 7 September a possible visit of the Tour de France 2017 of Brioude or Le Puy-en-Velay. On 13 September, Le Progrès (copied by Actualité 24) indicated that it would actually be both of them, with a stage finish in Le Puy-en-Velay on Sunday 16 July, after a long stage following the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James), via Saugues, Saint-Privat-d'Allier or « Montbonnet », in Bains.
This Thursday 22 September, L'Eveil indicated that this finish seems to be confirmed and, based on hotel reservations, it would even be the location of the second rest day the next day.
Therefore, the articles mentioning a stage in Marseille by Centre Presse Aveyron and La Provence which even talked about this in an interview with Jean-Claude Gaudin, the mayor of Marseille, continue to lose credits.
R2/ Monday 17 July 2017 : rest day in Le Puy-en-Velay
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16/ Tuesday 18 July 2017 : Brioude > Romans-sur-Isère
Still following Le Progrès, the start of this 16th stage would thus be in Brioude, the birth location of Romain Bardet who finished on the second step of the podium of the Tour de France 2016. According to this newspaper, this stage would visit the Col de Béal and go off to the Alps, but Le Progrès apparently doesn't know the finish location of this stage.UPDATE 4 October at 10.25PM: Radio Scoop is today the first one to say that this stage's start would not take place in Brioude while Le Puy-en-Velay seems to get confirmed ... Since I don't have an alternative for this stage start anyway, I keep Brioude here for now ...
The Alps
For the Alps stages, there's not enough reliable information available to precisely fill in the stages and how they follow up one another.However, several ideas are available in rumours, all remaining to be confirmed. Among them, the most credible are, in what seems to me a logical order:
> Romans-sur-Isère which would like, according to France Bleu to receive the Tour de France in 2017 or 2018; looking at the previous stages, this could well be the finish location for the 16th stage starting in Brioude on Monday 17 July 2017
> a stage finish in Villeneuve-la-Salle, or with a more common name Serre Chevalier-Villeneuve (La Salle-les-Alpes), the ski domain, apparently via the Col du Galibier
> a stage starting in Briançon and finishing on top of the Col de l'Izoard
> a stage start in Embrun with an unknown destination
The last three mentioned possibilities have all been published by D'Ici (also here), the local radio station which often tries to find the Tour de France race route in the area and manages to do so with more or less success, but often after several iterations. This seems to be one of the first iterations and we should thus keep a critical eye on it for now. Anyway, these informations were copied by the La Provence newspaper (also here) but also by the very serious radio station Alpes 1 who's often been right concerning the stages in the area. We can also discover this information, which according to the radio station have even been confirmed by Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour de France to Gérard Fromm, the mayor of Briançon, in a news item of the radio station on another page of Alpes 1 (starting at 7'45") but also in Le Dauphiné and Le Media 05 which indicates that from Embrun the race could go on to Marseille. But I must admit that I would think it's surprising that the race would leave the Alps to get to the city of Marseille at one or two days from the finish in Paris ...
The programme could thus be as follows
17/ Wednesday 19 July 2017 : La Mure > Villeneuve-la-Salle / Serre Chevalier
UPDATE 7 October at 12.15PM: today's edition of Le Dauphiné Libéré newspaper announces the start of this stage in La Mure, south of Grenoble. That's also the start location which was indicated by "Orca" in his message which announced a complete race route which is getting progressively confirmed for a big part of it, but Le Dauphiné doesn't give any concrete information which can prove this news. It thus remains to be seen whether this information indeed gets confirmed.UPDATE 11 October 2016 at 10.05PM: France 3 Alpes now also mentions this possibility and has interviewed some people from there and Anatole Novak, former team mate of Jacques Anquetil and born in La Mure:
UPDATE 15 October at 12.45PM: in the article by France Bleu, we could see a transition stage before the Alps this day for which rumours say that Romans could also be the start city of this stage, but this doesn't really seem probable based on the rumours we knew so far about the finish at Serre-Chevalier (distance too high) and the start in La Mure.UPDATE 17 October at 9.47AM: today, as if it was not in total contradiction with the previous article, France Bleu published an article in which the radio station mentions the stage start in La Mure which I kept in this article for the reasons explained above ...
18/ Thursday 20 July 2017 : Briançon > Col d'Izoard
UPDATE 25 September at 10.36PM: Concerning the stage between Briançon and the Col de l'Izoard, D'ICI radio - again copied by Le Dauphiné Libéré - talked about it again this Friday night, announcing that it would be L'Etape du Tour, the stage which is reserved for amateur cyclists on the identical race routre as the real Tour. The radio even provides detailed information of what the stage would look like, mentioning a visit of Guillestre, Embrun, Savines le Lac, Le Lauzet Ubaye, Barcelonnette, le Col de Vars, Guillestre again, followed by a finish at 2360 m on top of the col Izoard. As a reminder, this mountain top finish on the Izoard seems to be a logistical challenge which has not been confirmed to be possible so far!19/ Friday 21 July 2017 : Embrun > Salon-de-Provence
UPDATE 4 October at 10.25PM: The finish of this stage remained unknown so far but the following tweet coming from the Tour's official account seems to correspond to Salon-de-Provence as Pierre Lacoue found out :?? #TDF2017 ?? @LeTour est déjà passé par là et y sera de retour en 2017 / has already been there and it will be back in 2017. #TBT pic.twitter.com/cC5oZNVaco
— Le Tour de France (@LeTour) September 29, 2016
Nothing in this tweet indicates that this is about a stage finish or start, but usually the tweets coming from A.S.O. don't correspond to places where the race will only pass by.
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20/ Saturday 22 July 2017 : La Ciotat Marseille ??? > Marseille (ITT)
UPDATE 4 October at 10.25PM: A possible finish in Salon-de-Provence can reignite the rumours about Marseille which we found in Centre Presse Aveyron, La Provence and Le Media 05 and it could thus be the "traditional" "final" individual time trial before the Parisian stage.However, if this really gets confirmed, I think that A.S.O. should reconsider its indications about security it provides every year to all the followers of the Tour because even if you do part of the trip on the night of the time trial (and we won't get that far because the time trial will probably end quite late) and the rest the next day in the morning before the Parisian stage, that doesn't really help for the fitness of people for the last stage. Or maybe we'll see the "boycot" of this forelast stage getting generalised with the majority of the teams of most of the sponsors not being present and we can only keep our fingers crossed for no accidents happening with one of the followers of the sponsors who should stay and with the followers of the teams ...
UPDATE 17 October at 9.47AM: for the start of this time trial going off to Marseille, "Orca" already announced La Ciotat, but no single media came to confirm this information so far. That's now the case however with La Dépêche which published the full race route of the Tour de France 2017, completely identicial to the one announced here since some time now. We can actually wonder whether La Dépêche didn't come here to have a look at what I published before they wrote their article ... We'll see tomorrow whether this is the correct race route or not, anyway velowire.com has once again allowed you to discover all the rumours concerning the Tour de France 2017 race route!UPDATE 17 October at 7.43PM: finally, it seems to be that the start of this stage would not be in La Ciotat, but also in Marseille. This information was provided to me tonight by a source which usually is quite reliable, but I can only say it in a conditional way because even though I initially wrote this would be a stage with start and finish in Marseille, I don't really have any further proof of it ...21/ Sunday 23 July 2017 : Montgeron > Paris Champs-Elysées
UPDATE 13 October at 10.10PM: For the last stage, UPDATE 14 October at 9.25AM: the newspaper Le Parisien is a bit more hesitating when talking about the start in Montgeron. Indeed, they mention the fact that Montgeron is a candidate for the start of the last stage but they don't say that this start is confirmed yet. The newspaper does however indicate that François Durovray, deputy mayor (LR) and president of the conseil départemental will be present in the Palais des congrès de Paris this Tuesday to assist to the presentation of the race route of this 104th Tour ...
As for the finish, there's no reason to have any doubts about the finish on the Champs-Elysées in Paris.
The table with the stages of the Tour de France 2017 based on the rumours
Here's the list of stages which could together form the Tour de France 2017 race route based on all these rumours. As usual, there's no use in copying this table and reproducing it elsewhere because this is the only place where this table will be updated as soon as new rumours arise! Any copy of the contents (even partially) of this article is strictly forbidden!!| # | date | start | finish | comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | sa. 1 July 2017 | Düsseldorf (DE) | Düsseldorf (DE) | ITT 13 km |
| 2 | su. 2 July 2017 | Düsseldorf (DE) | Liège (BE) | |
| 3 | mo. 3 July 2017 | Verviers (BE) | Longwy | |
| 4 | tu. 4 July 2017 | Mondorf-les-Bains (LU) | Vittel | |
| 5 | We. 5 July 2017 | Vittel | La Planche des Belles Filles | |
| 6 | Th. 6 July 2017 | Vesoul | Troyes | |
| 7 | Fr. 7 July 2017 | Troyes | Nuits-Saint-Georges | |
| 8 | Sa. 8 July 2017 | Dole | Les Rousses | |
| 9 | Su. 9 July 2017 | Nantua | Chambéry | |
| R1 | Mo. 10 July 2017 | rest day in Périgueux | ||
| 10 | Tu. 11 July 2017 | Périgueux | Bergerac | |
| 11 | We. 12 July 2017 | Eymet | Pau | |
| 12 | Th. 13 July 2017 | Pau | Peyragudes | |
| 13 | Fr. 14 July 2017 | Saint-Girons | Foix | |
| 14 | Sa. 15 July 2017 | Blagnac | Rodez | |
| 15 | Su. 16 July 2017 | Laissac | Le Puy-en-Velay | |
| R2 | Mo. 17 July 2017 | rest day in Le Puy-en-Velay | ||
| 16 | Tu. 18 July 2017 | Brioude | Romans-sur-Isère | |
| 17 | We. 19 July 2017 | La Mure | Serre Chevalier | |
| 18 | Th. 20 July 2017 | Briançon | Col d'Izoard | |
| 19 | Fr. 21 July 2017 | Embrun | Salon-de-Provence | |
| 20 | Sa. 22 July 2017 | Marseille | Marseille | ITT |
| 21 | Su. 23 July 2017 | Montgeron | Paris Champs-Elysées | |
The map of the Tour de France 2017 based on the rumours
As usual, I created a map of the Tour de France 2017 based on the rumours in order to have a more visual overview of the whole race route. There again, there's no use in copying this map and reproducing it elsewhere (this is by the way strictly forbidden, as indicated on the copyright page) because this map will only here be regularly updated based on new rumours popping up!(in order to show the map full size, click on it when the magnifying glass appears and then click on the arrows in the lower right corner to show it full size)
A rumour about the race rules
According to La Croix, a modification of the race rules would take place for the Tour 2017. The newspaper mentions the organisor's wish to stop the times at 5 km from the finish instead of 3 km. The idea is to prevent the non specialists to participate, sometimes in a dangerous way, in the final sprint by stopping the timing for the general classification further away from the finish line. If you know the UCI rules on road cycling, you know that currently "the timing is not stopped at 3 km from the finish line". Indeed, article 2.6.027 of the road cycling regulations says that In the case of a duly noted fall, puncture or mechanical incident in the last three kilometers of a road race stage, the rider or riders involved shall be credited with the time of the rider or riders in whose company they were riding at the moment of the accident. His or their placing shall be determined by the order in which he or they actually cross the finishing line.If, as the result of a duly noted fall in the last three kilometers, a rider cannot cross the finishing line, he shall be placed last in the stage and credited with the time of the rider or riders in whose company he was riding at the time of the accident..
In what La Croix descibes, it more seems about something which has nothing to do with a crash, but really to stop the timing for the general classificatio at 5 kilometers from the finish (in all stages? in the stages of which the organisor thinks they'll finish in a bunch sprint?) in order to only have the stage victory (and what about the bonus seconds?) as the goal on the white finish line. To be confirmed ...
Imagine le Tour: the graphical identity of the Tour de France 2017 to be imagined by the "public"
After having tried, with more or less success, games with tweets and with photos the next year in order to create the final version of the Tour de France official poster, A.S.O. has decided this year to allow any graphical genius or similar to come up with a proposal for the Tour de France 2017 official poster, allowing him or her to win a VIP trip during the Tour and 5000, and now a first preselection of 7 posters has been made, the public can vote for its prefered poster until 29 September 11.59PM. According to the rules, the preselection could have contained up to 20 posters (and finally contains only 7) and the vote by the public should reduce the number of posters to be submitted to the choice of the Grand Jury to 5. If the goal remains the same, the public vote thus will only eliminate two of them. If you'd like to contribute to this choice anyway, you can do so imagine.letour.fr!Vond u dit artikel interessant? Laat het uw vrienden op Facebook weten door op de buttons hieronder te klikken!
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