Your Guide to the 2011 L’Etape du Tour: early planning

The 2011 Etapes du Tour are now announced, and for those who missed it, 2011 sees the introduction of TWO Etapes.

Given they are a week apart, there is every possibility that you could do both.

Entries are now open through Tour Operators, flights and accommodation are filling up fast so now is the time to book.

I won't go into the logistics in this post, as my Guide to L'Etape 2011 is now with the editor, and should be ready for release within 72 hours.

What began as a short, free, 20-page guide, has turned into a comprehensive, free 50-page guide covering the logistics of L'Etapes 2011. I've covered off flights, transfers, seeing Le Tour before, after and in between L'Etapes (if you do both L'Etapes), as well as places to stay, airports to fly in to, and more.

To get you thinking about your trip, you need to consider 3 areas urgently, these are:

• Flights
• Accomodation
• Securing an entry

These all rely on having a general itinerary, so you should also start thinking about this now.

Flights
Early bird flights into Europe are filling fast. For our Australian readers, you can get Qantas/British Airways (QF/BA) or Singapore (SQ) – with connections on Star Alliance (usually on Lufthansa via Frankfurt or SwissAir via Zurich) – flight into Geneva, Toulouse, Lyon and so on for around AUD$2,000, but you'll need to move quickly.

These fares are dependent on fly dates of course, but if you can leave Australia in very late June, you should be able to secure a fare at this level.

Emirates fares are around $2500 into Paris and Nice in July.

The reason I mention these airlines is because they all offer enough baggage to cover the extra weight of a bike though this is only true of Qantas if you are a Qantas Club member, or Frequent Flyer Silver and above.

Singapore and Emirates are offering 30kg standard.

As I said, these fares are disappearing quickly; over the course of last week, as I investigated different dates, the prices on both SQ and QF/BA flights started creeping upwards, with some SQ fares starting to head toward AUD$3,000.

Aussies and Kiwis should drop the guys at Cycling Adventures an email. They've been running different date/city flight combinations for me all week. Tell them TDF Tips sent you!

Accomodation
If you have not secured accommodation by now, you'd better get cracking. Now that accommodation operators know the Tour and L'Etapes will be in their area, prices will go up and availability will dry up.

Bourg D'Oisans is starting to look very tight already.

If you have a platinum credit card of any kind, it's time to call your free concierge and put them to work.

The free Guide to L'Etape 2011 will talk about towns to look at.

L'Etape Entry
For those that missed the news, the Velo magazine entry for L'Etape appears to have been discontinued.

Entries will be offered directly from the official site (6000 per L'Etape), as well as accredited Tour operators as per previous years.

BikeStyle Tours is again offering entry-only entries for AUD$450 but will not be doing L'Etape packages in 2011.

I recommend checking out CycloMundo. They are offering guaranteed entry for 250 Euro, as well as some packages. A guided package will take all the hassle out of L'Etape logistics like getting to and from the start and finish.

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