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June 20, 2007
Tour de France 2007 in Google Earth
As in the previous two years, biking enthusiasts have put together the details on the routes for all stages of this year's Tour de France. Someone called "Timetxu" in the Netherlands has published this TdF 2007 KMZ file 
in this forum post (Dutch).
Viewing the Tour de France routes in Google Earth is one of my favorite examples of the power of Google Earth. With GE's 3D terrain, you can tilt your view and truly get a feeling of how challenging this race really is - even if you have never been to see it in person. An important difference this year for Google Earth viewers is that the imagery for the French Alps has been greatly improved now that Google Earth includes medium resolution 2.5 meter resolution imagery from Spot Image. Still fuzzy up close, but better than it was last year. Also see a thread of posts with some other KML files showing some of the different stages for this year's Tour de France.
The GE file for this year's TdF posted above is not as detailed as some previous versions of the Tour de France, but it gives a good overview of all the stages. Last year Google helped develop an official Google Earth file (in four languages) for the stages for the official TdF web site. And someone even developed a live tracking capability of the race for 2006 (see below). Maybe we'll see some other innovations before the race begins on July 7th.
[UPDATE: here is a Google Maps mashup for live tracking of the 2007 Tour de France].
Related:
Posted by FrankTaylor at June 20, 2007 08:18 AM
Comments
Posted by: Timothy at June 21, 2007 04:56 AM
This is absolutely going to happen this year...team CSC will be expanding the use of this technology and each rider (at least in Team CSC) will have a streaming GPS device with, I understand, 5 second updates.
Take a look at http://www.csc.com/features/2007/258.shtml
which shows a pilot of this solution at AMGEN tour in California.
Posted by: john at June 25, 2007 01:14 AM
Thanks Frank for the heads up on this year's kmz file. I've added it to my 2007 Tour de France Dashboard:
http://www.steephill.tv/2007/tour-de-france/
I here that CSC is doing a Tour Tracker for this year's Tour de France, but I know they aren't doing with the Adobe Tour Tracker people and I haven't found a link or a news update on what they plan for this July. Anyone know of some recent news or a link?
Posted by: steephill at June 26, 2007 03:19 PM
http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/cycling/livematch/171221.html has a GPS tracker that includes the time difference and distance between groups. It also has text updates.
Posted by: Adam at July 8, 2007 08:29 AM
Hehe, I'm Timetxu and the one who has created. Thanks for the appreciation ;) .
Posted by: Tim Vergoossen at July 16, 2007 03:38 PM
Hey everyone, if you want to find more of these files, including the upcoming Tour de France file (finished in June 2008) go to my website http://www.freewebs.com/timetxu where I'll make files of all the major cycling stages.
Posted by: Timetxu at November 28, 2007 02:59 PM
Post a comment:
NOTE: Please use English. Comments are moderated.
If Google fitted a gps device with cellphone capabilities to each bicycle to enable live uploads it would make a fantastic supplement for anyone watching the race either live or on tv. It is often hard to judge the distances being covered and the distances between riders when watching a tv broadcast and the usually only follow the front riders etc so you don't get a feel for where all the other riders are etc.
In fact, if done right, they might even persuade broadcasters to use it in the tv coverage thus getting exposure for Google earth. They could also run one of their street view vehicles along the route prior to or even during the race!