L'Alpe d'Huez is a ski resort at 1,860 metres - a mountain pasture in the Central French Alps, and is one of the main mountains in the Tour de France. It has been a stage finish almost every year since 1976, although absent from the route in both 2009 and 2010, the first time since 1976 that it has missed two consecutive years. It is a favourite on all Tour de France anniversary years. The first was in 1952, won by Fausto Coppi.
The climb is 13.8 km at an average 7.9 per cent, with 21 hairpins named after the winners of stages there. There were too many when the race made the 22nd climb in 2001 so naming restarted at the bottom with Lance Armstrong's name added to Coppi's.
In 2001, English author Tim Moore wrote:
As a variant on a sporting theme, Alpe d'Huez annoys the purists but enthrals the broader public, like 20/20 cricket or nude volleyball. Last year, a full-blown tent-stamping riot had required heavy police intervention. During this year's clean-up operation, down in a ravine with the bottle shards and dented emulsion tins, a body turned up. He'd fallen off the mountain and no one had noticed.* When the Tour goes up Alpe d'Huez, it's a squalid, manic and sometimes lethal shambles, and that's just the way they like it. It's the Glastonbury Festival for cycling fans.
*after watching the Tour on TV for a few years, I’m surprised that doesn’t happen on EVERY mountain stage.
So now it is time to carb load and buckle into the most comfortable chair you can find, switch on the live broadcast and settle back for the ride to the top.
The climb is 13.8 km at an average 7.9 per cent, with 21 hairpins named after the winners of stages there. There were too many when the race made the 22nd climb in 2001 so naming restarted at the bottom with Lance Armstrong's name added to Coppi's.
In 2001, English author Tim Moore wrote:
As a variant on a sporting theme, Alpe d'Huez annoys the purists but enthrals the broader public, like 20/20 cricket or nude volleyball. Last year, a full-blown tent-stamping riot had required heavy police intervention. During this year's clean-up operation, down in a ravine with the bottle shards and dented emulsion tins, a body turned up. He'd fallen off the mountain and no one had noticed.* When the Tour goes up Alpe d'Huez, it's a squalid, manic and sometimes lethal shambles, and that's just the way they like it. It's the Glastonbury Festival for cycling fans.
*after watching the Tour on TV for a few years, I’m surprised that doesn’t happen on EVERY mountain stage.
So now it is time to carb load and buckle into the most comfortable chair you can find, switch on the live broadcast and settle back for the ride to the top.
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