July 3, 2010 – The 2010 Tour de France will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of Pyrenean involvement this year by pummeling the riders through this infamous mountain range, even going as far as climbing both sides of the Col du Tourmalet in the final week.

Raced in a clockwise direction the Alpes will come first followed by a solid journey through the Pyrenean mountain range, in all there will be twenty-three 2nd, 1st and HC climbs to tackle.

The Tour departs in Rotterdam Holland this year with a beautiful 8.9 km ITT through the Dutch streets, tailor-made for Fabian Cancellera (Saxo Bank). The route immediately heads south on stage one into Belgium for a succession of longer and perhaps critical stages.

Crosswinds, cobbles and climbs will be the “menu du jour” over these next three days as the peloton battles Paris-Roubaix’s cobbles and Liege-Bastogne-Liege’s intensely short steep climbs. In addition all three days are over two hundred kilometers, collectively creating some anxiety for the Tour hopefuls who dare not make a mistake.

The theme continues throughout this pivotal first week as a 227.5 kilometer monster on stage six from Montargis to Gueugnon will test the riders. Raced in a south-west direction, this longest stage of the Tour has some good size rollers to break up the field.

The second week of the Tour welcomes the Alps with a summit finish at Station Des Rousses on stage seven, followed by another on stage eight to Morzine Avioraz. Stage eight will be a long hard 189kilometer day with back-to-back first category climbs like the Col de Ramaz before the finish in Morzine.

Following a well deserved rest day in Morzine the riders head out to Saint Jean De Maurienne for 204 kilometers of pain. The Col de la Colombiere, Aravis and Saisses rear their ugly heads in the first hundred kilometers. However it’s the twenty-five kilometer Col de Madeleine that is sure to wreak havoc on the peloton before the finish of stage nine.

Stages ten through thirteen are essentially transition stages as the race continues it’s south-western route before the Pyrenees. Although they are once again long (179 to 210km) and are filled with second category climbs, the peloton will have some clear leaders by this point and teams that are willing to let breaks go clear and keep the time lost manageable.

It is stage fourteen from Revel to Ax Trois Domaines that may change the overall GC on July 18th. It is the steep average grades of over eight percent on the Porte de Pailheres and the 1,360m Ax 3 Domaines climbs that will have the climbers “dancing”.

The following day from Pamiers to Bagneres de Luchon, has the riders re-tracing the very first Pyrenean stage in the Tour de France, from the year 1910. Crossing the Col du Portet d’Aspet and the Col des Ares before the feared Port de Bales, a 20 kilometer leg-buster with eleven percent pitches, it is sure to be epic.

More mountains on stage sixteen as the peloton faces another two-hundred kilometer day into Pau. The Col du Peyresourde, Aspin, Tourmalet and Aubisque are battled before a long 58 kilometer descent to the finish.

On the final mountain day the Col de Marie Blanque and Soulor near the Spanish border are in the mix, before they head back-up the Tourmalet for a summit finish.

A 52-kilometer test against the clock on stage nineteen from Bordeaux to Pauillac on the penultimate stage may be the deciding factor of who wears yellow into Paris. A rolling course through the Medoc, this ITT is long enough to shake up the final GC.

In total 3,630.2 kilometers will be traveled as twenty-two teams of nine riders each face-off in the greatest show on earth.