Long weekend in the mountains (Alps or Pyrenees)

3 days cycling, 4 nights on tour, £600 to take part, £1200 fundraising target

We always try to pick out a long weekend from the route: tough cycling for the time-poor, pain-needy cyclist who’d like to go one better than the Etape du Tour and make the most of a trip to France. Return to the UK after the weekend and watch the pros make or break their tour on the famous, and not so famous, climbs of the Alps or Pyrenees.

Short, flat (ish), and sweet (usually Brittany, Normandy, the Loire or the East)

2 days cycling, 3 nights on tour, £450 to take part, £800 fundraising target

If you’re relatively new to cycling, hate hills, or want to support a friend who’s cycling for longer but can’t commit to too much training, this is for you! But it’s not an easy way out: you will still cycle the same route as the Pros, with all the undulations and challenges of the real Tour. The challenge is great – the rewards are greater.

The epic week (Alps or Pyrenees)

7 days cycling, 8 nights on tour, £1200 to take part, £1200 fundraising target

We’re usually able to extract a mountain-week Loop option from the route, including the biggest tour stages and finishing with the glory ride in to Paris. This is how to see the tour through the eyes of the pros, challenge yourself to multiple days of cycling and realise what is possible when you have the support and camaraderie of your fellow Loop cyclists.

Semi Loop (First half or second half)

10 days cycling, 1 rest day, 12 nights on tour, £1800 to take part, £1500 fundraising target

Either the first half or the second half depending on logistics and route. This gives you a chance to see what the Tour de France is made of. You’ll get mountains, transition stages, maybe a time trial or a rest day – and an insight into the beauty and excitement of the lesser known areas of France as well as the famous bits.

Quite game – but not that game! (Somewhere sunny and beautiful)

4 days cycling, 5 nights on tour, £750 to take part, £1200 fundraising target

A Loop designed mostly around beauty, scenery, sunshine and discovery – often leading into a glory-climb on your last day. It might be the stunning Jura mountains, ending with a climb up the Planche des Belles Filles – but in other years it could be low mountains or ‘undulating’ stages, leading to stories of endurance to tell your friends about when you’re back at work the following week.

The Challenge

30th June – 22nd July 2018
(All Loops will fall within these dates)

Ride from 2 to 10 stages of the Tour de France route!

For those taking on a Semi or Petit Loop, you have two choices:

1. Grab one of the 60 guaranteed Semi or Petit Loop places. Then in October, choose the Loop of your choice when the route is known and our Loop Options are published.

2. Wait for the route and Loop Options to be released (end Oct) and sign up from November 8th (but note that your 1st choice Loop may already be sold out).

• The official route for the 2018 Tour de France will be released by A.S.O. (the Tour de France organisers) in mid October 2017.
• Our Loop Options will be published by the end of October.
• Those who have bought one of the 60 guaranteed Loops will have until 7th Nov to choose their Tour Taster and all choices will be guaranteed.
• Sales of the remaining Loop places for 2018 will go live on Weds 8th November.

To sign up, you pay a non-refundable deposit of £200

The Route

We know that the 2018 route will start in the Vendee region and finish in Paris. We won’t know what will happen in between until October (when ASO – the Tour de France organisers, release the route) but we know the route will be fun, inspiring and gruelling in equal measure.