Stage 1: Reading to Southampton
Monday 10 September

Stage 1 of the 2007 Tour of Britain will represent the first road stage of the 2007 event and takes place in the South East region of England, thanks once again to the support of SEEDA, the South East England Development Agency.

Starting at Palmer Park Velodrome in Reading, the race will head south to finish close to another park, this time Hoglands in the centre of the city of Southampton.

In reaching this point in the race the riders will only have just over 2 kilometres of racing after the short, but intense, prologue time trial the previous day at Crystal Palace, as such, we hope that we will still have a full field of 96 riders by this point!

The route from Reading to Southampton for the South East stage will be a gruelling 87 miles taking the riders approximately three and a half hours to complete as they ride at an average speed of over 25 miles per hour.

The route travels via Pamber Heath (the first Sprint stage) to Whitehill, which is the first E.ON King of the Mountains hill climb, to the scenic area that provided the inspiration for Richard Adam’s novel Watership Down. The route then goes to Stockbridge for the second Sprint stage and then follows the River Test valley to Kimbridge where the second E.ON Kind of the Mountains starts. The route then travels through the scenic New Forest before entering Southampton and finishing at Hoglands Park.

To find out more about activity at both Reading and Southampton, or what time to be in position to catch the race on route, click on the links to the left.