Prologue of the Tour de France 2017

Tomorrow start the first stage of the 21 Tour de France stages of 2017! I am looking forward to all the stages and to who will surprise and who will not surprise the crowd this year.

Sadly the Giro winner of this year, the Dutch Tom Dumoulin, is not participating in this years’ Tour de France edition, but maybe he will take part next year and will maybe be the follow-up of Chris Froome.

During these three weeks I will also be reading the autobiography of Chris Froom: ‘The Climb: The Autobiography’. 

Scorito Selection

There is one very popular app where you can select a team of cyclists that will probably score points in the Tour de France 2017. You get a virtual budget of €51.000.000 and every cyclist in the database has a value based on their skills and accomplishments in the last couple of years. You can select twenty cyclists in total for the whole tour and for every stage you select nine of those cyclists of which one is the leader of the day. These are all predictions and you have to make your selection for every stage complete prior to the start of the stage.

Now you are wondering whom I have chosen to be in my Tour de France team of 2017.

The places from stage to stage

• Stage 1: Düsseldorf (14 km, 8.7 miles)
• Stage 2: Düsseldor to Liège (206 km, 128 miles)
• Stage 3: Verviers to Longwy (202 km, 125.5 miles)
• Stage 4: Mondorf-les-Bains to Vittel (203 km, 126.1 miles)
• Stage 5: Vittel to La Planche des Belles Filles (160 km, 99.42 miles)
• Stage 6: Vesoul to Troyes (216 km, 134.22 miles)
• Stage 7: Troyes to Nuits-Saint-Georges (214 km, 132.97 miles)
• Stage 8: Dôle to Station des Rousses (187 km, 116.20 miles)
• Stage 9: Nantua to Chambéry (181 km, 112.47 miles)
• Stage 10: Périgeuux to Bergerac (178 km, 110.6 miles)
• Stage 11: Eymet to Pau (202 km, 125.5 miles)
• Stage 12: Pau to Peyragudes (214 km, 132.97 miles)
• Stage 13: Saint-Girons to Foix (100 km, 62.14 miles)
• Stage 14: Blagnac to Rodez (181 km, 112.47 miles)
• Stage 15: Laissac-Sévérac l’Église to Le Puy-en-Velay (189 km, 117.44 miles)
• Stage 16: Le Puy-en-Velay to Romans-sur-Isère (165 km, 102.5 miles)
• Stage 17: La Mure to Serre-Chevalier (183 km, 113.7 miles)
• Stage 18: Briançon to Izoard (178 km, 110.6 miles)
• Stage 19: Embrun to Salon-de-Provence (220 km, 136.7 miles)
• Stage 20: Marseille (23 km, 14.29 miles)
• Stage 21: Montgeron to Paris Champs-Élysées (105 km, 65.24)

The twenty cyclists

The cyclists I chose are sorted by team

• Richie Porte (Team BMC)
• Peter Sagan (Team BORA)
• Rafal Majka (Team BORA)
• Mark Cavendish (Team Dimension Data)
• Serge Pauwels (Team Dimension Data)
• Alexander Kristoff (Team Katusha)
• Rick Zabel (Team Katusha)
• Maurits Lammertink (Team Katusha)
• André Greipel (Team Lotto)
• Dylan Groenewegen (Team LottoNL)
• Robert Gesink (Team LottoNL)
• Alejandro Valverde (Team Movistar)
• Simon Yates (Team Orica)
• Marcel Kittel (Team Quick-Step)
• Michael Matthews (Team Sunweb)
• Laurens ten Dam (Team Sunweb)
• Chris Froome (Team Sky)
• Luke Rowe (Team Sky)
• Bauke Mollema (Team Trek)
• Fabio Felline (Team Trek)

Who is gonna win the Tour de France 2017 do you think?

Greetings by Sophie