Tour de France presentation seen from Logic and from Fangirl:

For those of you who were afraid that the season here on My Blog had ended with Sunday post, here I am to reassure you that no, although the season has ended me will go on writing cyclistic bullshits during the whole winter. What a happiness.

As probably everyone in the world right now knows, the new Tour de France parcours was presented the other day in Paris. The parcours seems very well done and this time no cobblestones carnage are in sight.

The first stage starts at Passage du Gois and ends on Mont des Alouettes. So, no prologue for next year Tour, but a little ascent at the end of the first stage. The second stage is a 23 kms long team time trial (guys at Luxembourg Pro Cycling Team-is this the official name?-will probably be very happy about this, especially if it's true that Cancellara is joining them),while the 4th and the 7th stage are perfect for sprinters.

The 5th stage ends on Mur de Bretagne which, apparently, is the Britanny version of Muur de Huy. The 6th stage instead may be tricky because of the wind, while the following stage will probably end up in a sprint.

The eight stage instead ends at Super Besse. For those of you who have forgotten it, that's where Riccò won a stage in 2007 Tour de France,on the day when a very unlucky Andy Schleck lost some precious seconds because the yellow jersey (Schumacher?) had crashed right in front of him.

3 stages (and a rest day) later the riders will arrive on Luz-Ardiden, first 'serious' uphill finish of the race. On that stage the riders will also have to face le Tourmalet and another new (and apparently difficult) climb, so we supporters will surely have a lot of fun. The following day the stage will start in Pau and end in Lourdes and on the parcours the riders will have to face L'Aubisque (although the finish-line is 50 kms far from the top of the last climb). The last stage in the Pyranees instead will end on Plateau de Beille.

After these 3 tough stages, the riders will arrive in Montpellier, have a rest day and then face another flat stage ending in Chateaux. Then, on the 20th of July, they will start from Gap and arrive in Pinerolo after facing Monginevro and Sestriere. Hopefully, I'll be there ready to cheer on the riders.

The following stage will start in Italy and see the riders facing Colle dell'Agnello, col d'Izoard and finishing their daily fatigue on Col du Galibier. A day later, the riders instead will face Telegraph and Galibier before of ending up on l'Alpe d'Huez. Mont Ventoux is actually harder than Alpe d'Huez, but obviously l'Alpe is the climb on which every rider would love to win one day.

After these last days of pain, the riders will face an individual time trial in Grenoble, which will be 41 kms long. Then, the following day, we'll know the name of the 2011 Tour de France winner and the riders will have their usual parade on les Champs Elysées.

So, this is the parcours. Me likes it because it seems reasonably hard and because there are just a few kms against the clock. Then it looks like there won't be too many boring stages and this is obviously good. Moreover, the only stage that seems a bit dangerous on paper is the first one, with the riders facing Passage du Gois. Anyway, according to some experts, this time this stage won't create a carnage like the one of 1999 because the Passage will be faced at the beginning of the day, and not at its end (let's hope so). Then, last but not least, the riders are coming to Italy for one stage and, as an Italian, I'm obviously very happy about this.
Anyway, that's what Logic suggested me to write. Now, it's time for Fangirl to write her ideas about the Tour presentation. And, as you've probably already started to fear, this is the moment of the post in which me will talk briefly about skinny men dressed in suits.

At this year presentation Contador and his shiny pink tie weren't present, but this time the one who decided to wear pink was Vinokourov. After watching him dressed that way, I think everyone has understood why Astana kits get worse year after year.

Thor Hushovd looked great in his casual look (I loved the blue shirt), while Ivan Basso's green scarf (see pictures on Tim De Waele's website) terrified me. Nibali instead looked good, just like the Schleck brothers. Andy finally decided to give us the honour of seeing him dressed in a suit at a Tour presentation, and I thank him for this. Imo, he probably looked better than everyone else on Tuesday (even better than Frank). Cavendish opted for a more casual look, but I didn't like it very much. Evans was ok, just like Hincapie and Voeckler.

Sastre went for a classical grey suit that made him look terribly old. Menchov opted for a classical look too and looked very bored at the presentation. Poor Denis, trapped between the Schleck brothers and the Italian couple Nibali-Basso (or at least, that's what it seemed from some pictures).

Pozzato, for once, didn't wear anything of particularly strange and had to seat next to Vinokourov. Something tells me that Pippo gave Vino some advice about his look and this may have horrible consequences for next year's season (read: Vino could wear moustache at next year Giro/Tour/Liége/whatever else). If this happens, we'll know who we'll have to put the blame on,

As far as the other riders are concerned, I didn't see anyone making fashion disasters. Hopefully, the boys will dress well also on Saturday.

So, this was the presentation of 2011 Tour de France (and Fangirl's stupid opinions about what was fashionable on Tuesday and what wasn't). While waiting for the Giro presentation on Saturday (please tell me they're arriving in Bergamo city and not in Caravaggio!), I close this useless post by wishing you a good night.