If you want to follow the Tour de France, knowing the route the Tour follows is about the most important bit of information to know. The Tour de France race organizers announce the following year's route (or parcourse) about nine months before the Tour starts. After this announcement, you can find a map of the course at the official site of the Tour de France (http://www.letour.fr). This year's course is as follows:
For more information, most cycling magazines print a detailed description of each stage in June, including profiles of the course and commentary on the major climbs. Since I waited until June to plan my trip, I picked up a copy of Cycle Sport and Velo News, which provided many good pictures and graphical profiles of the route. I thought that Velo News had a better graphical presentation of the 2007 course but Cycle Sport had a more informative textual description, including historical moments on the climbs. There are also some excellent sites on the internet each year. I found SteepHill SteepHill to have the best information and coverage this year. Additionally, searching the internet with Google affords virtually limitless commentary on general and specific topics relevant to the Tour. Based on my goals, I found the following Google searches to be informative: