The 2009 Tour de France will go through six countries, but for Team Garmin-Chipotle, part of the race will be spent at home. For the first time in the Tour’s 96-race history, the Tour will pass through Girona, Spain, the Catalan training base of the Boulder-based cycling team.
“That’s kind of cool,” team director Jonathan Vaughters said Wednesday from Paris, where the Tour announced the route. “It’s funny. The Tour organizers must like us. They brought back the team time trial and are going through our hometown.”
While Garmin-Chipotle is based in Boulder, with many cyclists having homes in the area, most train around Girona, which has easy access to the Pyrenees mountains used in the Tour. The Girona route comes early, Stage 6 with a flat 108-mile stage from Girona to Barcelona.
The Tour route has numerous nuances. It begins July 4 in Monaco, only the second time that it will start in the general area of southeastern France. Besides traveling through France and Spain, it also goes through Andorra, Switzerland and Italy. It will have a mountain stage at famed Mont Ventoux the day before the Paris finish and will bring back the team time trial, which was absent this year.
Garmin-Chipotle won the team time trial at the Giro d’Italia. Next year’s team trial will be a 23.6-mile sprint around Montpellier in Stage 4 on July 7.
“It’ll be good for us,” Vaughters said. “And there will be no stupid time restrictions as in the past. The fastest time wins. That’s what gives us a big advantage.”
The 2,100-mile route features seven mountain stages, including a brutal pass of the 7,946-foot Port d’Envalira, a 6-mile, 7.1 percent grade climb in the Pyrenees on the Andorran-Spanish border.
Team Garmin-Chipotle, with a strong showing this year, is all but officially invited. What isn’t clear is if seven-time winner Lance Armstrong, who is coming out of retirement with Team Astana from Kazakhstan, will race. Armstrong, 37, announced he will race in the Giro but has expressed doubts for the Tour because of the increased media and fan attention but, some speculate, also because of the cool reception the Tour has given him in his comeback.
“I think Lance could race the Tour, for sure,” Vaughters said. “I’m not sure if he can win it. To be there to help (Alberto) Contador (2007 winner) is feasible.”
John Henderson: 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com
