"Le Tour" has "Le Cool" Maps

If you Google for a map of The Tour de France you'll find the same map issued by the tour itself...a basic route for the race. The mainstream media has essentially replicated that map without much enhancement. USAToday took the route and posted it to Google Maps but the interactivity is minimal.

However, the Tour's own website is very cool. Each stage has the day's segment in a small map but the most nifty part is the "real-time" update of the riders portrayed against a topographic profile map. Lead riders and the peleton are shown in a "cartoon-like" portrait of the race along a road segment and the map is updated every minute or so. The map is updated with the leader's speed, the position along the post (in Km) and the remaining distance. Riders can be individually idenitified by their avatar in the cartoon.

Nicely done.

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