London Tour de France schedule

The Tour de France rolls into London this Friday and hopefully the weather will improve for the big race. Anybody watching Wimbledon will know that London’s had incessant rain showers, some of them very heavy for the last month. The Tour is in London for three days and despite the lousy weather hundreds of thousands of people are expected to watch the events, let’s hope security alerts don’t ruin the occasion. Here’s the timetable for this weekend’s Tour start.

6 July - Opening Ceremony Taking place in Trafalgar Square starting at 6pm when the riders and teams taking part will be introduced. Free to attend.

7 July - Prologue The Tour promotional caravan of hundreds of floats and vehicles starts down the 8km Prologue coarse from Whitehall through Hyde Park to the finish on The Mall at 1pm. The warm up for riders starts at 2pm and the first rider starts on the Prologue at 3pm. Scheduled to finish around 6.20pm.

8 July - Stage 1 The caravan leaves The Mall at 8.40am, riders sign on at the Podium between 9.25am-10.20am and riders depart at 10.25am heading to Tower Bridge and Greenwich.