José Adrián Bonilla will become the first Costa Rican ever to compete in the prestigious Tour de France.  His Spanish team, Comunidad Valenciana, received an invitation from the organizers , one of two special invitations that the Tour makes.

The 2006 Tour will be July 1st to July 24th. Every year the race has a different route in order to include different cities and topography. This edition will leave from Strasbourg in a 7 kilometer prologue. In total there will be 21 stages that cover a total of 3,639 kilometers.

There are 2 rest days and two time trials. This year the team time trial was eliminated, it was good for the more powerful teams, but handicapped the others. This will be the first post-Armstrong tour, who dominated the last 7 years.

Prizes: A total of 3.2 million euros, of which 450,000 euros are for the winner.