Tour de France goes 3D with Google Earth
Posted by Peter Birch, Product
Manager
I don't know about you, but with the action and excitement
heating up in the Tour de France, it's hard to keep track of
exactly where everybody is riding. When you're trying to
understand the Herculean effort that these cyclists go through in
stages like L'Alpe d'Huez, or which streets in Paris the
final stage will pass through, 2D maps just aren't as
compelling.
But now you can make sense of it all by flying around the route
yourself. A new KML file available on the
lets you see the entire course overlaid on satellite imagery for
Google Earth.
This special Google Earth tour is available in French, German, and
Spanish as well as English. Pick your language on the Le Tour site,
and once you've done that, look for the "Tour on Google
Earth" link in the lefthand navigation under Route. Then you
can see the starts, the finishes, even information on each of the
cities along the way. Just move the KML file into your "My
Places" folder on Google Earth, and follow along day by day.
(Did you know that Huy has the unique privilege of hosting stages
for the Tour de France, the Giro and the Tour of Belgium this year?
We didn't either.)
Be sure to try out the tilt feature to see the truly daunting
magnitude of all of those climbs where riders are battling it out
in this year's wide-open race. "Beyond Category"
climbs? No thanks — we'll stick to the flats and leave those
verticals to the pros!