Prologue - Saturday, July 3 2010, Rotterdam, 8 km

After an opening road stage in 2008 and a very hilly time trial of more than double the usual prologue distance last year in Monaco, the 97th Tour de France starts with a more traditional prologue TT both in terms of length and profile.

With fewer than a dozen bends, most quite sweeping, and no climbing, this is for time trial specialists. The only significant difficulty will be the wind that sweeps across the Erasmus Bridge. Otherwise, there are plenty of straights that might result in Chris Boardman’s 55.152km/h average from the 1994 prologue being bettered.

Stage profile