Tour de France 2009

I want to go to Paris in July to see the Tour de France.
I know that it will end in the Champs Elysees.
I saw the avenue on a visit on champselysees.org, and it seems like a nice place to see it.
The avenue is big, do you think I will see the Tour de France ?
And if I don\'t see it do you think that they will show it on the website ? Reply to this

www.letour.fr and the great www.cyclingnews.com have up to the minute live updates, but I'm not so sure about live images. Those can be found on many sites though. Eurosport and ARD/ZDF (German TV) have sites with live webcasts.

The C-E is a great place to see it because they thunder up and down the C-E a number of times, so you'll see the cyclists several times. At 60 km/h though, because the last stage traditionally ends in a mass spurt and they'll do their best to let no one go solo, so it'll be a challenge to recognize any individual cyclists. They will have big screens up with images from the motorcycle cameras, so it's possible to see most of the action anyway. Come very early: the C-E is huge, but the crowd coming to see this is even huger :-)

If you're going to come especially for the TdF the last stage is a good shout of course, but I say from experience: try and find a mountain stage and watch the cyclists 'crawl' uphill at a 'piddly' 20 km/h (you and I would die even trying that speed for a few meters), it's great to see them coming along in little groups, slow enough to recognize them. Or an Individual Time Trial, preferably also uphill. You then know ahead of time which cyclist is coming along when.

Oh and as a fan: all you spectators out there, do NOT stand on the road in front of the cyclists, jumping out of the way at the last second and certainly do NOT run along with them! Every year stages are messed up by plastic fans who try to get on camera, making cyclists fall or stall. And don't pour water over the cyclists unless they ask, they usually hate it. Please. Reply to this

Hello Violene

2 years ago my wife and I were in Paris to see the end of the TDF. It is crowded howver you will see the race easily. Lots of folks show up very early and set up a camp. We walked up and down the Champs Elysees, the one item that I didn't realize was the speed they go by. I would suggest watching the race at the end where they make the turn you'll see racers better. Reply to this

Why not go and see it in an outlying suburb where they might actually be racing! Reply to this