Suffer-fest Tour turns pain dial up

After 1,400 kilometres (nearly 900 miles) in eight days of racing, the suffer-fest Tour de France now turns the pain dial up a notch or five. How does scaling half the height of Everest in one day sound?

That’s the monstrous challenge lurking on Sunday for the 193 already tired and sunbaked riders who have made it this far.

For the moment, when race leader Chris Froome looks over his shoulder, he sees a gaggle of challengers hot on his heels. Just 61 seconds separate him from 10thplaced Rafal Majka of Poland. More dangerous contenders are closer still to the three-time Tour champion.

All that will likely change on the succession of seven climbs in eastern France’s Jura mountains on Sunday — three of them so tough they defy categorization on cycling’s sliding scale of climbing toughness. “A monster stage” is how Froome described it, predicting the race standings will “get blown to pieces.”

Total elevation, when all the ascents are added together: 4,600 metres (15,000 feet). That’s just shy of the height of western Europe’s highest peak, Mont Blanc, and about belly buttonheight on Everest.

The last “hors categorie” climb, Mont du Chat, may be named after a cat but looks on Tour maps like a lion’s fang. With an average 10 per cent gradient, and even steeper than that in parts, it will push riders already exhausted by the previous six climbs to the very limit. Hearts pounding, legs burning, they will have no time to recover from its hairpin bends before plunging into more fast, twisting bends on the descent. Clear heads and quick reactions are a must: Not easy when body and brain are screaming for rest.

“That climb is savage,” Froome said. “I imagine it’s going to blow the general classification right open.”

Complicating matters: Saturday’s stage, also in the Jura mountains, was far from easy.