Track the 2010 Tour de France in Real Time with Google Maps

If you’re a cycling fan you’re no doubt hyped about this year’s Tour de France which has just gotten underway. The massive competition that crosses several European countries and is set to end in about three week’s time is the greatest and the best known event in the sport. If you’re the type of fan that can’t get enough of stats and numbers, you’ll love the page Google set up for the HTC Columbia team.

The team’s eight riders are being tracked in real-time and the interesting part is that everyone in the world can keep up with their progress through the dedicated Google page. Some of the stats are obvious, the rider’s location is plotted in near real time on Google Maps, so you can keep an eye on his progress, and you can also check out the speed at which he’s traveling.

But it goes deeper than this, when you select an individual rider you’ll be able to see his power output, his cadence and even his heart rate. And if you know what you’re looking at, the numbers can be quite impressive, cycling is one of the world’s most demanding sports and the energy these riders consume just for one leg of the competition is astonishing.

The tool is rather interesting, but if you’re wondering why is Google hosting an app dedicated to a single team with which it has no direct ties, you have to look at the team’s name. HTC is one of Google’s biggest Android partners and the page is also being used to promote My Tracks, an Android app which records GPS data from your phone.

This year, fans have more ways than ever to keep up with the latest developments and get all the info they need. Bing Maps has a rather comprehensive app dedicated to the Tour de France so you can get a clear overview of the upcoming stages. Equally impressive, you can see the course mapped in Google Earth and the third dimension really puts things in perspective.