Just like last year (and some years prior), Thomas Vergouwen has built some great files for the 2010 Tour de France and sent them our way. The race begins tomorrow, so here are a few things to help you keep up with it.
Your best place to start is with the file from Thomas, which includes a wealth of information about the race, as seen in the image above. You can download the KML here
or read all about it on his blog.Another great KML for the race comes from the Google Earth Community via steephill.tv. This file is much simpler, but if you just want to check out the course without all of the extra info, this is a great way to do it. You can download this KMZ file here
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The race starts tomorrow, so enjoy the next three weeks of racing. If you know of any other great Google Earth files to compliment the race, please leave a comment and let us know.
About Mickey Mellen
Mickey has been using Google Earth since it was released in 2005, and has created a variety of geo-related sites including Google Earth Hacks. He runs a web design firm in Marietta, GA, where he lives with his wife and two kids.
Checkout the Google & HTC Columbia team up to provide live riders data in Google maps .. http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/mytrackstour/
Both highly recommended for fans of the Tour, although the settings for ‘flying’ the route as a tour that Thomas recommends in his blog would be a bit extreme for most users.
Two years ago, we were able to track the race live in Google Earth — is that going to happen again?
I just created a flyover tour using this info and loaded it using the browser tour widget. You can check out Stage 3 at: http://www.hydrapak.com/blog