Ballon d’alsace

“The route to the summit is climbing joy”

Back in 1905, before the Tour de France had ventured across the high passes of the Pyrenees and Alps, and in its third running, its mastermind Henri Desgrange chose the Ballon d’alsace in the Vosges as the first genuine mountain of the race. Until this point, its highest peak had been the Col de la République, but this new climb, although only slightly higher, was significantly steeper, which led Desgrange to declare that no rider would be able to cross it without walking.

Big words, and strange you might think for someone organising a bicycle race. Naturally, he was proved wrong, and the first man to the summit that day (without putting a foot down) was René Pottier. For the next nine years, the Ballon d’alsace featured but as Desgrange found steeper, longer passes in the high mountains further south, it fell out of favour, only being included another 10 times to date. The classic route to the summit is from Saint-maurice-sur-moselle via nine kilometres of climbing joy, packed with switchbacks on a steady six to seven per cent gradient. Having hosted four stage finishes in the 60s and 70s, it was granted another rare appearance in 2005 to mark the centenary of its first inclusion. The most recent visit was last year, where, along with a whole host of famous Vosges climbs, it merely played a bit part in the stage on the run up to the finale on one of the Tour’s new stars, La Planche des Belles Filles.