"Ride" the Tour de France without breaking a sweat on Google Earth
Mountain View (CA) - Experience the Tour de France cycling race from a somewhat elevated position and the comfort of your office chair: Google has released a new KML file for Google Earth that lets users see all the stages of the race in 2D and 3D.
The entire course has been superimposed on the Google Earth satellite imagery - and users can even tilt the map to get an almost 3D view of some of the insane mountain climbing the cyclists face.
The Tour de France is the world's most famous cycling event with 20 official stages stretching from Strasbourg to Paris. The longest stage is 230 km or 143 miles, while the toughest climb is at Stage 15's L'Alpe d'Huez where competitors must climb more than 3000 feet in just a few miles.
The Google Earth tour is available in several languages including English, German, Spanish and of course French.
Related links:
Official Tour de France site
Download of Google Earth Tour de France KML file
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Humphrey Cheung was a senior editor at Tom's Hardware, covering a range of topics on computing and consumer electronics. You can find more of his work in many major publications, including CNN and FOX, to name a few.