The Tour de France is barely a week old and already there has been enough drama to keep sportswriters busy for months to come. The first week of the Tour has been marked (or is that marred) by several crashes that decimated the peloton.
The first week has also been marked by the tremendous performance of a 22 year old rider from Slovakia. Peter Sagan has taken the bike-racing world by storm, managing not only to win several stages of the 2012 Tour, but to win them all in grand style. It is so refreshing to watch this “kid” race his bike—he even put a bell on the handlebar of his racing bike to warn other that he is coming!
In this first week we have also seen Bradley Wiggins, from Team Sky, setting out to become the very first Englishman to win the Tour de France. There are still two more weeks of racing, so hang on to your guidon—there are bound to be a few more surprises in this 99th edition of the Grande Boucle.
Of course, this being Tour time it also means that my dear and close personal friend and cycliste sans pareil, Monsieur Arcabulle Odriscoll, will once again ride two stages of the Tour. Those of you who have followed this blog know that M. Odriscoll is a Frenchman who, like many people in his country, is an avid bike rider who competes in many cycling events.
This year, M. Odriscoll began his training regimen on April 1, 2011, by riding on the amateur version of the Paris-Roubaix race. To call Paris-Roubaix a bike race is like calling the marathon a walk in the park. Paris-Roubaix, or l’enfer du Nord (the Hell of the North) is the most difficult, most painful, and most stressful bike race in the world.
What makes this particular race such an exercise in cycling masochism is that most of the race is run over pave (cobblestones). These are not normal cobblestones. The Paris-Roubaix cobblestones are more like oddly shaped rocks strewn over the roadbed. Famous bike racers, like five-time Tour winner Bernard Hinault (le Blaireau or badger) hated Paris-Roubaix so much that he only rode the race once in his career (where he proceeded to crash three times). M. Odriscoll finished Paris-Roubaix in less than 5 hours and 30 minutes.
That set the stage for him to ride L’Etape du Tour-Part One. Scenes from the Paris-Roubaix race. L’Etape du Tour is a sporting event organized by the same people who run the Tour de France. Every year the event’s organizers choose two stages of the Tour for amateur riders to ride on the same course as the racers who compete in the Tour. This year Stages 11 and 16 were chosen for L’Etape du Tour.
On Sunday, July 8, M. Odriscoll rode the stage from Albertville to La Toussuire (Stage 11 of the Tour). At “only” 148 kms, Stage 11 of the 2012 TdF is one of the shortest stages in the 99th edition of the Tour. But beware, this is one of the toughest stages of the 2012 Tour. The course starts at the town of Albertville, in the heart of the Alps. Albertville is situated in the Combe de Savoie on the verge of the Tarentaise, Beaufortain and the Val d'Arly, that gave it its nickname of the Crossroads of the Four Valleys.
With its medieval city of Conflans, it is graced with a double label of Town of Art and History and Cycling Tourism Town which allows it to bridge the gap between heritage and sporting activities. After the first thirteen kilometers from Albertville, the riders will not find another single inch (or should that be centimeter) of flat terrain!
The cyclists will tackle, in order, La Madeleine, La Croix de Fer and Le Mollard before the final climb up La Toussuire. La Madeleine is a Hors Categorie (HC) climb which simply means that it is so tough and so hard to climb that it cannot be categorized. It is a 25.3 kilometer climb to the top of Madeleine, at an average gradient of 6.5% .
Fifty-three kilometers after riders reach the summit of La Madeleine, comes the next climb, Col de la Croix de Fer, another HC mountain pass. It is 22.4 kilometers to the top of Col de la Croix, at an average gradient of 6.9%. Next, the riders get a break of sorts. The next mountain is Col du Mollard, a Category 2 climb. The riders only have to ride for 5.7 kilometers at an average gradient of 6.8%.
Remember, however, that by the time that the riders have reached the summit of Col du Mollard, they have already been on their bikes for 100 kilometers and have climbed two HC mountains. If the riders have survived this far, (according to M. Odriscoll more than half of the field of riders had abandoned before the Mollard climb), they face one more climb.
Before crossing the finishing line, at La Toussuire, the riders will have to ride for 18 kilometers, at an average grade of 6.1%, to the finish atop the Category 1 mountain. The climb towards La Toussuire and the surrounding passes make up one of the largest cycling areas in the world, the Maurienne Valley. Once they arrive at their destination, tired as they may be, the riders will enjoy one of the most beautiful sites on the French Alps.
Perched on its plateau of alpine pastures, La Toussuire offers a 360 degree panorama on the majestic Aguilles d'Arves, the mountain passes of the Croix de Fer and of Glandon and the eternal glaciers. La Toussuire is the doorway to the domaine of Sybelles. In the winter, its 310 kilometres of pistes, that form the largest ski area in Maurienne, connects six resorts, Le Corbier, Les Bottieres, Saint-Colomban-des-Villards, Saint-Jean-d'Arves, Saint-Sorlin-d'Arves and La Toussuire.
Congratulations to you my dear friend on a race well ridden. You are the Gladiator of the Road. The course where Arcabulle rode his bike last Sunday.
