ON THE ROAD
It promises to be the toughest stage of this year’s Tour de France, so we sent senior staff writer John Whitney out to the Jura Mountains to get a taste of what the pros will be putting themselves through in stage nine of the event, from Nantua to Chambéry.
You’d think that after 113 years and 104 loops of the country there would be little new ground for Tour de France race directors to dig into. So, credit must go to Christian Prudhomme, the race’s current supremo of 10 years standing, for his innovative 2017 route, which eschews many of the climbs made famous by the race and heads off-piste into – in Tour terms – uncharted territory.
Nothing encapsulates that more than the stage from Nantua to Chambéry, an unspeakable mélange of barely used or hitherto overlooked climbs in the Jura mountain range. It’s a region that, in terms of the love it gets from the Tour, sits, both metaphorically and literally, in the shadow of the Alps. Covering 181km, 4600m and three of the most maniacal climbs in France, stage nine is the toughest course of this year’s race, likely the toughest Jura mountain stage in Tour history.
Stage is set
Beginning in Nantua and climbing modestly with the Col de Cuvery, things don’t get serious until just after the town of Seyssel, with the back-to-back brutes of the Col de la Biche and the toughest of the four sides of the Col du Grand Colombier. After 30km and 40-odd minutes out of the hurt locker, things revert to fever pitch with the Mont du Chat, a mountain that, while possessing considerable uphill challenges might well be nothing compared to the roller coaster downhill to the finish in Chambéry.
I could take solace in the fact I was riding solo and could take my time, and I wouldn’t be doing the whole thing. The complicating factor with mimicking Tour routes is that they are often point-to-point routes, so riding them leaves the question of how to get back to base. By starting in Seyssel, 50km into the stage, I could enjoy the meat of it and be able to make it home without having to ride the whole thing in reverse.
A train runs from Chambéry to Seyssel and takes 90 minutes, if you don’t have the luxury of a support vehicle, like me. A saner route would be to cut out the Mont du Chat and loop back to Seyssel from the foot of the Grand Colombier. It might only register 55km on the clock but with 2000m of climbing in your legs – nearly exclusively of the wrestlingyour-bike variety – it’s not to be sniffed at.
For a ride like this, you need to pay close attention to your choice of equipment. Weight is important, gearing even more so. My 34/28 bottom gear was one that will likely be mirrored by the professionals for such a sky-scraping day out, perhaps even lower. With the road pointing up immediately out of Seyssel, it would be cash in the bank for later in the day.
Seyssel is a lovely town on the banks of the Rhône. I should really say towns, as there are two Seyssels, facing each other, like rivals, on either side of the river, one in the Ain department, the other, where I was staying, in the Haute-Savoie. By crossing the bridge you’re into Ain, and where the first part of our ride takes place.
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It would be prudent to go for a warming spin in the valley, otherwise you’re onto the Col de la Biche immediately. Climbing starts right after the bridge, though it isn’t until the left turn in Gignez where my 28-sprocket starts to earn its keep. The climb averages 9 per cent through its 10.5km length, and unerringly constant in gradient to the summit, with only a couple of 6 per cent ‘breather’ kilometres interspersing a considerable number of double digit leg crunchers.
Something new
The climb is a Tour newbie, whisked out of obscurity as part of Prudhomme’s box of tricks for 2017. It’s the classic priming climb – it’ll wear riders down for later in the day but isn’t pretty enough (until the summit) to be scheduled at the point when live television cameras are rolling. For me it was a torture chamber, taking well over an hour up a mostly characterless road carving through dense woodland. The views can be stunning closer to the summit – I’d been promised a cracking glimpse of Mont Blanc in the distance – but early morning fog put paid to that. On the plus side, the only vehicle in sight was that of my photographer, Manu, and guide Bruno Toutain, of cycle touring company Cyclomundo, and the only sounds were from me wheezing.
The warm embrace of the spring sunshine in Seyssel had given way to an icy fog by the time I’d crested the first summit, reached when you pass the cross by the road side, and tucking into the brief descent before the summit proper at 1325m instantly chilled the warm sweat streaming from my brow. I got my first sight of another vehicle on this otherwise desolate col – it was the gendarmerie testing radio signals ahead of the Tour. The event is a behemoth that is active all year to deliver those three weeks in July.
Taking a breather at the summit, the thick fog shrouded the view of my next challenge, the Col du Grand Colombier. Given its reputation that’s perhaps for the best.
The climb is a Tour newbie, whisked out of obscurity as part of Prudhomme’s box of tricks for 2017
Intense concentration is needed for the Biche’s descent – it’s as steep, rough and sinewy as the side I climbed, and on a sunny day, the sun peeking through the trees would mean shadows play havoc. Goodness knows how the pros descend these roads at 80kph, I was just happy to get to the bottom in one piece.
Grand entrance
There are two options up the Grand Colombier from the west side, and two from the east. If you turn left in Lochieu you’ll miss the side the Tour climbs, and be glad of it. The hardest, by far, is the Tour climb, from Virieule-Petit, and the first time the race has ascended this side. The opening 5km’s gradients of “la Directissime” range from 8.5 to 14.5 per cent (at a max 28 per cent) with the setting, like Col de la Biche, a phalanx of trees hugging a tight strip of tarmac that makes the atmosphere humid and suffocating.
I join a group of mountain bikers, zig-zagging all over the road in an effort to reduce its potency. By the time it eases off with 5km to go you join the road that the Tour ascended last year, where it soon begins to break your back all over again with a tough finale. You can take your mind off the suffering as the scenery opens up in a manner that befits the highest pass in the Jura. Again, Mont Blanc is visible on a clear day. Again, Mother Nature thwarts my sightseeing.
The name of AG2R La Mondiale pro Romain Bardet is emblazoned across these roads, and he’s a popular chap in these parts. His team (and sponsor) are based at the finish of the stage in Chambéry, as is the Chambéry Cyclisme Formation, the development team from which he and many other French pros have graduated. These are the tough and technical climbs and descents that have shaped one of the most accomplished riders in the world, so expect him to feature prominently come July 9.
Another testing descent off the Colombier ensues, though not as monstrous as the Col de la Biche. The Tour route carries on to Anglefort but the more scenic road is the one riders came up during stage 15 of the 2016 race – dubbed the Lacets du Grand Colombier, from Culoz. Unfortunately, a landslide has hit the road and you’ll be faced with a barricade for the foreseeable future.
If you’re looping back to Seyssel it’s your first chance for some flat-road riding with just a few kilometres to get back into town.
If you’re braving the Mont du Chat like the Tour and I, head south down the western Ain side of the Rhône until Lucey, where you cross into the Haute-Savoie. It’s one of the few main roads in the ride, but is nothing to worry about. Through Jongieux and Billieme you sacrifice the flat for something steeper, but it’s a compromise worth making for more tranquil roads.
The climbing proper of the Mont du Chat begins with a left-turn through Trouet. It’s not a new climb to the Tour, but Prudhomme was still in school the last time the Mont du Chat appeared in 1974, where Eddy Merckx was dropped by his great rival Raymond Poulidor. He reeled him in on the descent and won the stage, but the climb had the great man teetering.
A climb’s difficulty is relative, of course, and depends on the circumstances. But Mont du Chat is undeniably savage, and a grim sense of déjà vu will envelope the peloton as they make that left-hander and sink into a green tunnel of pain through thick woodland. Over 8.7km it averages 10.3 per cent, and nothing below 9 per cent once the ‘easy’ first kilometre is in your pocket.
Steep stones
The one (sort of) saving grace is that now we’re in the Haute-Savoie there are handy stones at the side of the road to say what’s in store over the next kilometre. Unfortunately, it makes for pained reading. Rounding the hairpins you realise just how steep this road is, as it’s just a matter of metres up the road where the road below seems a very long way down.
A paucity of views for the near entirety of the Chat’s length is forgotten by a couple of viewing points near the summit. The first looks out west into the Rhône Valley and southern Jura and the second at the summit looking into the snow capped peaks of the Alps. Both offer a handy guide as to the location of each mountain ranges’ peaks.
Chambéry, 25km away by road, is visible, and easy to reach once you’ve
These are the technical climbs and descents that have shaped one of the most accomplished riders in the world
negotiated the precipice that is the descent into Le Bourgetdu-Lac. The climb up this side, from the busy centres of Chambéry and Aix-les-Bains, is by far the more popular. If you don’t see an AG2R rider scorching their way to the summit, in their distinct brown kit, you’ve been unlucky. I was able to mark my bingo card by running into Hugo Pigeon, who rides for the Chambéry Cyclisme Formation, coming up from the lake.
It’d been a day of intense grinds for satisfying summit payoffs, and they don’t get better than the summit of the Mont du Chat, 1500m up on a ridge that looks down on the region. At a guess the hardest stage of the Tour will more likely be a battle of attrition with an exciting finish than a race-defining turning point. For us amateurs, this is the sort of ride, the level of extraordinary challenge, that’ll stay with us far longer.