In early June, with the Giro completed, most pros focusing on the Tour de France are into their final preparation phase. This can include races like Luxembourg (Armstrong, F Schleck), Switzerland (Armstrong, Cancellara, both Schlecks, Vande Velde) and the Dauphiné Libéré (Contador, Menchov).
The Dauphiné runs right through our area of southern France next week with a 49k time trial starting in Monteux; we’ll have more on that soon. Besides the racing, many riders are pre-riding key routes, as some of the higher passes have just opened. Our photo above shows Contador on the Port de Balès during his recent recon mission in the Pyrénées.
It was a nice day in Provence today — finally! It’s March with the first trees in flower, though hardly visible since snowy alpine weather brought a foot of snow last week. If you’ve been following the “race to the sun,” you know this same cold front resulted in the shortening of stage 3 [...]
Climbing out from down under: join the Aussies!
A few months ago I heard from a nice Oz fellow Jeff who rode with VeloSport Vacations in Provence a few years back. It’s a long voyage from down there to France, so this time he wants to come with his cycling-crazed wife for a couple of [...]
Mont Ventoux attracts thousands of cyclists for any given summer season. But 2009 was quite the year for VeloSport’s little corner of Provence. One July week saw both the “Etape” cyclosportif with 8000+ riders followed a few days later by the finish of Stage 20 of the Tour de France. Between all the publicity [...]
You might call our newest 2010 program a “civilized” approach to following the world’s craziest bike race. Of course I like our Pyrénees program (sold out!), but the Alps & Lake Annecy trip is a more refined balance of the key things in life: riding, race viewing, eating, sleeping, and yes, vacationing.
We’ll be [...]
© 2010