Toulouse Bagnères- de- Bigorre
The Tour finally reaches the Pyrenees, with a backloaded stage featuring tough climbs and spectacular scenery
One of the quirks of the 2019 Tour de France route up to this point has been the comparative difficulty of the ‘middle mountain’ stages. The climbs on stage 6 to La Planche des Belles Filles, stage 8 to Saint-Étienne and even stages 5 to Colmar and 9 to Brioude will have turned these into extremely tough days, and the riders haven’t even hit the major mountain ranges yet. Conversely, this stage is about as straightforward as the big mountain stages get this year – a comparatively gentle introduction to the Pyrenees, with a long run-in and two firstcategory climbs, before a descent to the finish.
The Col de Peyresourde, which comes at 146km, is one of the Tour’s most venerable locations. It isn’t just the first major mountain climb of the 2019 Tour and the first summit above 1,500m, it was also the first climb on the first high mountain stage ever featured in the Tour, the 326km run from Bagnères-de-Luchon to Bayonne, via the Peyresourde, Aspin, Tourmalet and Aubisque during the 1910 edition of the race.
By contrast, stage 12’s second mountain, the Hourquette d’Ancizan, is a relatively new addition to Thierry Gouvenou’s Pyrenean palette of climbs. It has turned up in the 2011
and 2013 Tours and 2019 will be its third appearance in the race. Its headlong and scenic descent to Bagnères-de-Bigorre, which joins up with the descent of the Aspin, is the finale to the stage. In 2013, Dan Martin’s maiden Tour stage win was also Ireland’s first since Stephen Roche 21 years earlier.
The writer Graham Robb tells about the rapid growth of Pyrenean spa towns in the early 20th century, as the railways opened up opportunities for people from the cities to take rest cures and ease their ailments. “Bagnères-de-Bigorre was like an infirmary founded by a sadistic joker,” he wrote. “Half its visitors were suicidal melancholics, the other half were hypochondriacs.”
The riders of the Tour may well identify as they arrive at the business end of the race.