Tour de France organisers have designed a balanced route for the 95th edition of the world's premier stage cycle race next year, with a brutal climb up the notorious L'Alpe d'Huez in the final week set to potentially decide the outcome.
Starting in Brest on July 5, the 2008 Tour will run over 3 554km from the Brittany city to Paris, with four hilly stages and five mountain stages, including three in the Alps.
"We wanted to put rhythm into the first week," Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme said yesterday.
"We wanted to offer different scenarios. There will be possibilities to attack in every stage," he said.
Organisers also hope the race's scenario will differ from this year's, when the Tour was hit by doping scandals.
In July, then-leader Michael Rasmussen and Kazakhstan's Alexander Vinokourov were both kicked out of the race amid doping scandals.
Competition director Jean-Francois Pescheux said there would be no time bonuses throughout next year's Tour.
"The first week will not necessarily be the exclusive property of the sprinters," said Pescheux.
Prudhomme said: "We want the Tour to rediscover its romanticism. It means the plot will not be obvious."
The Tour returns to its roots with three days in Brittany - a region that gave birth to five-time winner Bernard Hinault, three-time champion Louison Bobet and two-time winner Lucien Petit- Breton.
For the first time since 1966, the race will not start with an individual time trial, with the effort against the clock taking place in Cholet in the fourth stage. Hilly stages will take the peloton straight to the Pyrenees with a finish at Hautacam.
It promises to be a Tour de France to remember.