NOT SO ALONE ON THE MOUNTAIN
The Côte de la Montagne is a 375m stretch at 10 per cent that tows riders away from Saint Lawrence up into the old town before sending them back down to the Québec City quayside. Then begins the slog back up the Côte de La Potasse and the long rising sprint up the Grand Allée. The flamme rouge falls outside the Château Frontenac. It’s a topsy-turvy 3.6km of technical riding where position is a premium. Sagan aptly described the final kilometres as “upside down”. We know what he meant.
The peloton passed by 16 times, every 20 minutes or so. With the breakaway group around 10 minutes ahead for most of the early afternoon, there was a constant burble of activity. The goldwrapped Lexus was a camera magnet, so were the police patrol outriders on their enormous 70s style motorbikes. Crowds weren’t their usual chock-a-block size, though.
One volunteer remarked on the sparse fans in the Plains of Abraham section, the manicured park at the heart of the city. “They’ll be out later,” he said, more in hope than expectation as we passed under the imposing Brutalist Hotel de la Concorde with its revolving restaurant at the top. The weather had been rotten the day before and the race had started under leaden skies.
On the right hand curve of the Côte de la Montagne, fans mixed with tourists to bump up the numbers. At the very steepest section of the climb, risqué indie shops sat alongside more traditional purveyors of maple syrup and knitware. Here, two spectators, Alex and Daniel, perched on a retaining wall and enjoyed the best view in the house of riders toiling slowly past. Weather meant little to this pair of soldiers who had a pass for the day from their regiment, nicknamed the Van-Doos - a Franglish nickname for the Royal 22nd Regiment based in the city.
“This year there are not many people about,” they confirmed. “They’re worried about the rain. In past years the weather was sunny and 20 or 30 degrees.”
Spectator-friendly sporting events are thin on the ground in Québec City, Daniel said. “We have the Marathon des Deux Rives, but this competition is the greatest. I was up at the start before and I heard many foreign languages, which is great for the city.”
Daniel hoped that one day more stars from the general classification of the Tour de France would come and race in Canada, but he knew the Vuelta a España would waylay the grand tour men. In their mid-to-late 30s, the pair were both avid downhill mountain bikers who made the 40-minute journey to their Mont Sainte Anne playground as regularly as they could. Judging by the numerous road bikes propped up along the route, they were broadly representative of local fans. French might be the first language, but they take their cycling as Anglo-Saxon fans tend to: as avid doers as well as watchers.
As the day stretched on, the volunteer from earlier did turn out to be right however. As the sun warmed the roads for the final 60km, the roadsides and pavements clogged up with lingering spectators as the race moved towards its conclusion.