Route
The Tour du Rouge is a 6 day 540 mile cycling tour from Houston to New Orleans. The Tour averages 90 miles per day.
| Saturday April 30 | Send Off Party in Houston | |
| Sunday May 1 | Humble to Beaumont | 94 miles |
| Monday May 2 | Beaumont to Sulfur | 90 miles |
| Tuesday May 3 | Sulfur to Lafayette | 100 miles |
| Wednesday May 4 | Lafayette to Morgan City | 94 miles |
| Thursday May 5 | Morgan City to Gonzales | 86 miles |
| Friday May 6 | Gonzales to New Orleans | 82 miles |
| Friday PM | Victory Party in New Orleans | |
| Saturday May 7 | Bus return to Houston | |
| Weekend | Optional stay in New Orleans |
Maps of the overall route and each day’s rest stops are in this document.
Training
Tour du Rouge is six consecutive days of long rides. Since most of us don’t usually ride that far, we recommend that you train. If you follow the training mileage in the plan document, you should finish each day of the ride with a smile on your face.
Gulf coast riding is very flat but can be windy and the route we will ride is largely unprotected. So try to spend some of your training time riding into the wind.
You can download a PDF file of the plan: Training Plan (PDF)
GPS Files
If you own a GPS device that can use Garmin’s gdb file type or the more generic gpx file type, the zipped route files below may be used to help you navigate the Tour route. These routes will work with the Garmin Edge 500 and up models with appropriate maps installed. They should work in most other routable GPS units. Please read the use instruction document included in the zip file before using the route file.
Which file to use
There are two sets of GPS files included here: Garmin’s proprietary format – gdb and the generic exchange format – gpx
gdb: Link Coming Soon – if you are using Garmin MapSource or Basecamp PC software. The file includes all 6 days of waypoints and routes. You’ll have to “unzip” the file and store the gdb file on your computer for use.
gpx: Link Coming Soon – if you are loading routes (also called courses) and waypoints (also called locations) directly into your GPS device. The ZIP file includes all 6 days of waypoints and routes. You’ll have to “unzip” the file to get the individual gpx files to load to your device.