June 30, 2023
This year’s Grand Départ will take place in Bilbao and feature the region’s punchy climbs, making the opening stage a prime opportunity for the puncheurs or even a GC rider looking to go out strong
Distance: 182km
Start location: Bilbao
Finish location: Bilbao
Start time: 12:30 CEST
Finish time (approx): 17:15 CEST
The Tour de France coming to town for the 2023 Grand Départ is the kind of major international event that the residents of Bilbao have grown used to in the past few decades. Since the 1990s the city has been transformed, from a struggling post-industrial town reeling from the decline of its industrial sector to a regenerated tourist spot where the economy is booming again.
The rejuvenation began in the late nineties, with the construction of the Guggenheim Museum. Commissioned to design a building that would help create a new, positive image of the city of Bilbao, Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry came up with a radical, elaborate and ambitious novelty that instantly captured the public’s imagination. Its intricate curved patterns of multiple interconnecting titanium layers is astonishing to behold and has been celebrated as one of the great architectural feats of the modern era, as well seamlessly capturing the essence of the city’s history — located on the bank of the Nervión river, the museum’s shapes evoke both the ships that have docked here since Bilbao’s foundation as a port city in the mediaeval era, as well as the hilly terrain that mark the town’s horizon.
In the years following its construction, tourists flocked to Bilbao to see it, and the rest of the city has ridden in its coat tails, to the extent that tourism has now replaced heavy industry as its main economy, and is thriving again. This pattern of building a prominent new landmark in a rundown part of town to try and instigate its renewal has become known worldwide as ‘the Bilbao effect’, but though much imitated in other aspiring towns, few if any have matched it.
Stage one profile sourced via ASO
After setting off from Bilbao against the backdrop of the Guggenheim at the start of the day, the riders will travel in a clockwise direction around the region of Biscay before returning again back where they started, having taken in many of the tricky hills and undulating roads this part of the world is renowned for.
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