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Stage by stage
stage 2 - Les Essarts 
Les Essarts
23 km
Sunday 3 July
Les Essarts
23 km
Sunday 3 July
Team TT - A sporting perspective
JEAN-FRANÇOIS PESCHEUX’S ANALYSIS : Team power
“This team time trial is short and totally flat. We don’t want to end up with big time gaps but at the same time we do want some of the favourites to lose time. But on a course like this the gaps won’t, in theory, be too big. Each team’s time will be taken when their fifth rider crosses the line. This test is all about getting the balance right. Every team has riders who feel more at home in this kind of test and they will have to rein themselves in slightly because the objective is to finish as a group. Some of the Anglo-Saxon teams make a point of focusing on the team time trial as these tests underline the homogeneity and intrinsic value of the group as a whole.”
Les Essarts
Saint Peter’s church from the nineteenth century, constructed on the site of the former Roman church© Mairie des Essarts
• Stage town on one previous occasion
• 5, 054 inhabitants
• Cantonal subdivision of Vendée (85)
At the heart of the Vendée, Les Essarts is both the principal town of the Les Essarts canton and the seat of the community of the Pays des Essarts municipalities, situated at the crossroads of the A83 running from Nantes to Niort and the A87 between Paris and La Roche-sur-Yon. A number of monuments and places of interest have been preserved from its rich history: the twelfth-century chateau with its Saracen tower, Saint Peter’s church, reconstructed in the nineteenth century on the site of the ruins of the twelfth century Roman church, and the twelfth-century Roman crypt, which still stands. Built in 1182, it retains its magnificent archways and pillars of the time. This tight community is nevertheless busy and diverse: 90 clubs or societies cater for everyone – from sport to culture to leisure to welfare. Culture, in particular, is given priority: Les Essarts boasts a library, schools, a private college and a public college set for completion in 2013. In addition, thanks to an exchange programme, Les Essarts is twinned with the English town of Bicester, near Oxford, and Neunkirchen-Seelscheid, near Cologne, in Germany, helping to cultivate its openness and sense of belonging to Europe.
The peloton of the Tour will continue to progress along the roads of Vendee which are symbolic of cycling. The visits of the Grande Boucle (Big Loop) are frequent there, and it was precisely after a stage finish in Les Essarts that the 2005 Tour left the department. Tom Boonen got ahead of Thor Hushovd in the sprint, and then did so again the next day in Tours, which is also a region of sprinters. Another kind of high speed display will be provided on the daily circuit with a team time-trial focusing on aesthetics and performance.
• www.vendee.fr
• www.ot.paysdesessarts.fr
• www.vendee-tourisme.com
• www.paysdesessarts.fr
• www.tour-de-france.vendee.fr
Les Essarts
Town hall at Les Essarts© Mairie des Essarts
• Stage town on one previous occasion
• 5, 054 inhabitants
• Cantonal subdivision of Vendée (85)
Les Essarts shares an agricultural and industrial economy, situated in one of the most industrialised areas of the Vendée, mid-way between the Pays Yonnais and Cholet. Until 1960, the area was essentially rural, relying on traditional agriculture, based on farming and the rearing of Charolais cattle. It was two residents of Les Essarts, the Batiot brothers, who introduced the breed 100 years ago, and the Vendée is still considered that cattle breed’s second home. The industrialisation of the area began in the 1960s, and today a number of businesses are based in the area’s two industrial zones. Slaughter houses, poultry farms, bread-making, dried animal feed, fine leather goods, auto parts and transport are all industries that provide work for 2,500 people. The roads here at the heart of the Vendée may now have become motorways, but now as then, Les Essarts is a dynamic municipality, sure of itself and confident for the future of its inhabitants.
• www.vendee.fr
• www.ot.paysdesessarts.fr
• www.vendee-tourisme.com
• www.paysdesessarts.fr
• www.tour-de-france.vendee.fr