Tour de France 2016

Pop it in your diary now folks.. 2nd - 24th July 2016 - Its the 103rd edition of the Tour de France, and as always it's likely to be a banger!!

As usual 21 stages make up the route, this time covering 3,519km. A total of 9 flat stages for the sprinters (including the final 'procession' on the Champs-Elysees), 9 mountain top finishes and a welcome return of 2 serious individual time trials (of 37 and 17km in length).

The Grand Departe is from Mont Saint-Michel in north west France, and then the route will visit Switzerland, Andorra and Spain (as well as a bit of France!) before returning the capital for its classic finale.

Time bonuses are back this time as well, with the top three on each stage gaining bonuses of 10, 6 and 4 seconds respectively. This is the first time that this has featured in the Tour for 7 years, and as in other races only counts for 'normal' stages (not mountain-top finishes!).

Check out the official route in 3D below, and over the coming months we will explore the route and where it's visiting in more detail!

Enjoy!

Giro d'Italia 2016

Ok, ok...

Bit behind the times, but better late than never eh?!

For anyone who missed it, the Giro will turn 99 this year - running from the 6th - 29th May 2016, it starts with three days in the Netherlands before going back over to Italy for the remaining eighteen stages from Catanzaro and finishing in Torino.

As always, they've got a flashy promo video that was shown at the route presentation on 5th October 2015 - check it out below! (credit to steephill.tv for the link)

More details of the route, any particularly nice-looking / interesting places to follow over the next couple of months, but with the race covering 3,383km and including three individual time trials, one might be left wondering what happened to the usual brutal first grand tour of the season.