The World's Longest, Toughest Race
With the 2012 Tour now underway this year’s race is shaping up to be one of the biggest ever. 25 full tour riders have registered to race, including 14 men and 11 women. Some will be serious contenders for the overall crowns, others have the dream of winning a stage on this the world’s longest cycling race, while the rest are being timed just for the fun of it. All told they are scheduled to race 9400 km of our 11700 km route through 10 countries, including 69 full days from camp to camp, 9 half days, 4 individual time trials and 12 non-race days. We will be posting the updated results 2-3 times a week as we receive them from Africa and you can follow them here.
Stage 1 Race Description: The Tour always starts with 2 convoys, first to the opening ceremonies at the pyramids and then to get through and out of the Cairo traffic. This day also serves as a warm up day for all the riders. Consequently there is no race and on non-race days all racers who complete the day are given a time of 5 hours.
Stage 2 Race Description: The 2012 TdA race kicked off with a 166 km stage from near Al Sukhna to a desert camp along the Red Sea. As the longest day in Egypt it’s also the first of 15 mando stages whereby the top 3 men and women earn time bonuses of 30 20 and 10 minutes respectively. Seizing the day by outsprinting 2 local Egyptian riders was Germany’s Raffael Schrof with an actual time of 5:01. His countryman Rüdiger Müller and American Bryce Walsh rounded out the top 3 Full Tour male racers, while Netherland’s Femke Nelissen recovered from a fall on Day 1 to finish as the top lady.
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Posted January 17, 2012 by Brian Hoeniger
Egypt | Race Updates | Tour Updates |
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