The Col du Galibier is a mountain pass in the southern region of the French Dauphiné Alps near Grenoble. It is the eighth highest paved road in the Alps, and recurrently the highest point of the Tour de France.
The Critérium du Dauphiné, before 2010 known as the Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré, is an annual cycling road race in the Dauphiné region in the southeast of France. The race is run over eight days during the first half of June. It is part of the UCI World Tour calendar and counts as one of the foremost races in the lead-up to the Tour de France in July, along with the Tour de Suisse in the latter half of June.
Thomas Voeckler is a French former road racing cyclist, who competed professionally between 2001 and 2017, for the Direct Énergie team and its previous iterations.
Team TotalEnergies is a professional road bicycle racing team that competes as a UCI ProTeam in UCI Continental Circuits races, and UCI World Tour races when invited as a wild card entry. In previous years, the team was known as Brioches La Boulangère, Bonjour, Bouygues Télécom, and Bbox Bouygues Telecom and Europcar. The 2015 season was the last under the sponsorship of Europcar. The team has been sponsored by Direct Énergie since 2016.
Anglefort is a commune in the department of Ain in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of eastern France.
Culoz is a former commune in the Ain department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of France. On 1 January 2023, it was merged into the new commune of Culoz-Béon.
Pierre Rolland is a French former professional road racing cyclist, who competed as a professional from 2007 to 2022, and was particularly known for his aggressive style of racing in the mountains.
Thibaut Pinot is a French professional road bicycle racer, who rides for UCI WorldTeam Groupama–FDJ. Once considered one of the most promising talents in French cycling, he finished third overall in the 2014 Tour de France and first in the young rider classification. He has won stages in all three Grand Tours, with 3 in the Tour de France, 1 in the Giro d'Italia and 2 in the Vuelta a España. Pinot has taken more than thirty professional victories, including the Giro di Lombardia in 2018, and he won the mountains classification at the 2023 Giro d'Italia.
The 2012 Tour de France was the 99th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It started in the Belgian city of Liège on 30 June and finished on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on 22 July. The Tour consisted of 21 stages, including an opening prologue, and covered a total distance of 3,496.9 km (2,173 mi). As well as the prologue, the first two stages took place in Belgium, and one stage finished in Switzerland. Bradley Wiggins won the overall general classification, and became the first British rider to win the Tour. Wiggins's teammate Chris Froome placed second, and Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas–Cannondale) was third.
The 2011 season for the Team Europcar cycling team began in January with La Tropicale Amissa Bongo and ended in October with Yukiya Arashiro's performance in the Japan Cup. It was the team's twelfth season as a professional cycling team, although its second as a UCI Professional Continental team. Unlike fellow former UCI ProTeams Cofidis, FDJ, and Geox–TMC, they did not seek the status for 2011, thus in order to compete in any UCI World Tour event, the team had to be invited in advance, by race organizers.
Romain Bardet is a French professional racing cyclist who rides for UCI WorldTeam Team DSM–Firmenich. Bardet is known for his climbing and descending abilities, which make him one of the top general classification contenders in Grand Tours.
The 2012 Critérium du Dauphiné was the sixty-fourth running of the Critérium du Dauphiné cycling stage race; a race rated as a World Tour event on the UCI calendar, the highest classification such an event can have. The race consisted of eight stages, beginning with a prologue in Grenoble on 3 June, and concluded in Châtel on 10 June. The race was organised by the Amaury Sport Organisation, the same group that organises the Tour de France. It was viewed as a great preparation for July's Tour de France, hence why a majority of the contenders for the general classification of the major tour participated in the Dauphiné. It featured mountainous stages as well as an individual time trial quite similar in length to those that awaited the riders in the Tour.
The 2012 Tour de France began on 30 June, and stage 10 occurred on 11 July. The 2012 edition began with a prologue – a short individual time trial stage – where each member of the starting peloton of 198 riders competed against the clock – in Liège, Belgium with two more stages held in the country before moving back into France. The race resumed in Orchies for the start of the third stage; also during the first half of the race, the peloton visited Switzerland for the finish to the eighth stage in Porrentruy, and contested another individual time trial stage – having returned to France – the following day.
The Col de la République or Col de Grand Bois is a mountain pass in the Pilat massif within the Pilat Regional Natural Park in the Loire department of the Rhône-Alpes region in southern France. Located on the D1082 in the commune of Saint-Genest-Malifaux, it connects Saint-Étienne with Annonay in the Rhône valley. The road was constructed in 1830 and the col has an altitude of 1,161 metres.
The Col du Ballon d'Alsace is a mountain pass situated close to the summit of the Ballon d'Alsace in the Vosges Mountains of France. It connects Saint-Maurice-sur-Moselle (Vosges) with Masevaux (Haut-Rhin) and Belfort.
The 2013 Critérium du Dauphiné was the sixty-fifth running of the Critérium du Dauphiné cycling stage race; a race, organised by the Amaury Sport Organisation, rated as a World Tour event on the UCI calendar, the highest classification such an event can have. The race consisted of eight stages, beginning in Champéry on 2 June – the first such start for the race in Switzerland – and concluding in Risoul on 9 June, and was the sixteenth race of the 2013 UCI World Tour season. The Dauphiné was viewed as a great preparation for July's Tour de France and a number of the contenders for the general classification of the Tour participated in the Dauphiné. It featured mountainous stages as well as an individual time trial similar in length to the Tour.
The 2014 Tour de France was the 101st edition of the race, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It featured 22 cycling teams. The Tour started in Yorkshire, England on 5 July and finished on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on 27 July. The first two stages, in Yorkshire, were informally nicknamed Le Tour de Yorkshire; its success led to the formation of the Tour de Yorkshire stage race the following May.
The Col de Porte is a mountain pass situated in the Chartreuse Mountains in the Isère department of France, between Le Sappey-en-Chartreuse to the south and Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse to the north. It sits on the D512 between Grenoble and Chambéry, and prior to 1998 was often crossed in conjunction with the Col du Cucheron and the Col du Granier.
The 2015 Critérium du Dauphiné was the 67th edition of the Critérium du Dauphiné cycling stage race. The eight-stage race in France began in Ugine on 7 June and concluded in Modane Valfréjus on 14 June, and was the sixteenth of the twenty-eight races in the 2015 UCI World Tour season. The Dauphiné was viewed as a preview for July's Tour de France and a number of the contenders for the general classification of the Tour participated in the race.
Guillaume Martin is a French cyclist who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam Cofidis.
