Bring your Second World War textbooks, because the Tour's opening stage will allow the tv directors' history fetish to really hit its stride. Stage 1 will finish by Utah Beach, one of the D-Day landing sites, allowing for several extended helicopter shots of... well, beaches.
It's a flat stage too, allowing for a sprinter to wear the yellow jersey at the start of the race. The second stage is largely flat aside from a brutal 3km climb at the finish, with a peak steepness of 14%. There's a fair chunk of the stage exposed to the coast too, so the peloton being split like in stage 2 of this year's race is a very real possibility.
Stages 3 and 4 are both flat and made from sprinters, the only notable feature being the first of the pair, Granville-Angers, allowing for the older hands to make Open All Hours references. The Massif Central mountains kick in in stage 5, with three climbs in the last 35km allowing those with eyes on the maillot jaune to stake their first real claims.
Three Pyrenean mountain stages precede the first rest day, the first ending with a big climb up the Col d'Aspin, followed by an intense descent to the false flat finish. The following stage has four climbs, the first a 19km climb up the hors catégorie Col du Tourmalet. If that hasn't split the peloton enough, three more climbs before a steep, long descent into Bagnères-de-Luchon should really separate the leaders from the bunch.
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The rest day in Andorra is bookended by two stages riddled with climbs, with climbers and punchers alike fancying their chances. History would suggest that the leader by now will hold the jersey until Paris, with the last three Tours having their eventual winner in the maillot jaune by Stage 10. The next stage from Carcassonne to Montpellier won't shake up any standings but the green jersey, but stage 12 certainly could.
The finishing climb up Mont Ventoux is the one on which Chris Froome cemented his first Tour victory, beating Nairo Quintana to the summit by half a minute, and almost a further minute ahead of anyone else. He'll be tipped to do the same again, but his many challengers will be eyeing the 15km at 8.8% as a great chance to make up time, particularly the French riders looking to mark Bastille Day.
Equally, the time trial specialists will look to stage 13's ITT as their chance to shine. An unremarkable three stages will take the Tour into Switzerland for a second and final rest day outside France. Attention then turns fully to the mountains, where, for all the climbs and time trialling beforehand, everything will truly be decided.
Stage 17 finishes with two 8% climbs in short sequence, with all but 5 of the last 30km spent going uphill. A brief mountain time trial follows, from Sallanche to Megeve, likely to see riders facing battles not only with each other, but to leave something in reserve for the two pivotal stages that follow. It may only be 17km, but will provide a huge opportunity to make up valuable seconds, or even minutes.
Mont Blanc will loom into view on stage 19, with the finish at Saint-Gervais in the shadow of Europe's largest mountain, although Montée de Bisanne some 50km from the finish is a longer, steeper and higher climb than the final summit. The final stage, from Megève to Morzine, has two climbs that max out at over 10%, with a long descent to the finish. It's a town where Nairo Quintana has won in the past, and if he's in with a shout, as he was last year, he'll have every reason to like his chances of achieving a Tour victory.
Whoever holds the yellow jersey on July 24th, they'll also be holding champagne on the ceremonial final stage on the Champs-Élysées, where the sprinters will find out the hard way if they conserved enough energy in the Alps for the slingshot onto the most famous road in cycling.
So what does all this mean? Firstly, it's undeniably a Tour for the climbers. Chris Froome will fancy his chances of taking a third win, although certainly he'll have several contenders. Astana look set to be united behind Vuelta winner Fabio Aru, with Nibali concentrating on the Giro. Alberto Contador will surely be giving everything to win what he may have already decided is his last Tour. Quintana will be aching to improve on his two second place finishes behind Froome.
And what of the French riders? No less an authority than Bernard Hinault has read the riot act to Thibaut Pinot, Romain Bardet et al, and suggested that this could be the year a Frenchman retakes the top spot. We've never heard that before, have we? But with or without the dawning of a new French era, it's a route that has been designed for drama, and to encourage lead changes. Fasten your seatbelts...
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