Tour de France in London

The route of the 2007 Tour de France was announced in Paris today with London hosting the first two stages. On the 6 July they’ll be an opening ceremony for the Tour then on the 7th the Prologue time trial will take place.

This is a short 7.9km race against the clock where each of the approximately 200 starters will ride individually at two minute intervals.

The London Prologue will start at the top of Whitehall, go down past Westminster and the Houses of Parliament turn right along Victoria Street, then cut up Buckingham Gate towards Buckingham Palace.

The riders will pass right in front of the Palace then head up Constitution Hill, go through the Wellington Gate at Hyde Park Corner and into Hyde Park where they’ll do a short circuit taking them round the Serpentine before exiting the park and heading back down Constitution Hill and going along the Mall to the finish.

London’s been pushing for a while to get a stage of the Tour and they’ve routed it around a lot of the big attractions to get maximum tv exposure for tourism.

The following day, 8 July, the 1st Stage proper a 208km ride from London to Canterbury will start from the Mall just inside of Admiralty Arch, go down Northumberland Avenue to the Embankment and along to the Houses of Parliament.

The Peloton heads over Westminster Bridge, turns left on the south bank past the London Eye until Blackfriars where it goes back across the River Thames and heads east past St Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower of London and over Tower Bridge to the south side again, going east through Deptford and passing the Royal Observatory and Maritime Museum in Greenwich before heading off into Kent and the finish in Canterbury.

The organisers of the UK stages are predicting 2 million people will come into the region for the Tour and the local economy will benefit by up to £120million.

Cycling is not a sport that the UK generally takes much interest in but the organiser’s and authorities in London are pushing next year’s Tour in a big way, as a boost for the profile of London and as a major event trial for the Olympics.