The 91st Tour de France starts tomorrow with the opening prologue time trial. Not much to say in pre-Tour news, but I found some interesting bits of information at cyclingnews.

This year's Tour will feature 188 riders from 27 different countries, broken down like this:

• France 40
• Spain 31
• Italy 30
• Germany 15
• Australia 10
• Netherlands 8
• Belgium 7
• USA 7
• Russia 6
• Switzerland 6

Other stats for this year's peloton:

• Lowest resting heart rate: Santiago Perez (Phonak) - 31 bpm
• Largest respiratory capacity: Mikel Astarloza (Ag2r) - 7.98 litres
• Lightest rider: Alexandre Botcharov (Credit Agricole) - 54.5 kg
• Heaviest rider: Magnus Backstedt (Alessio-Bianchi) - 98 kg
• Shortest rider: Samuel Dumoulin (Ag2r) - 1.58 m
• Tallest rider: Guillaume Auger (RAGT) - 1.96 m
• Youngest rider: Filippo Pozzato (Fassa Bortolo) - 22 years
• Oldest rider: Viatcheslav Ekimov (US Postal Service) - 38 years
• Average height: 1.79 m
• Average weight: 69.9 kg
• Average respiratory capacity: 5.74 litres
• Average blood pressure: 122/69 mm Hg
• Average resting heart rate: 51 bpm