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The importance of mountain climbs

Why should this be? Why are mountain climbs so important in shaping the outcome of the Tour de France? Part of the reason is to do with wind resistance. As a cyclist’s speed increases linearly, the air resistance that cyclist has to overcome increases exponentially. So bike racers have to overcome far more air resistance to increase their speed by one mile per hour when travelling at 25 mph than they do when travelling at 10 mph. This means that when they are travelling fairly fast, on a flat stage for example, the riders find it very difficult to break away from each other. The whole field can slipstream each other, saving energy, and will often finish virtually together.

Going uphill though, involves a different set of physics. It’s the force of gravity rather than air resistance that has to be overcome. No cyclist can travel faster uphill than on the flat, so the reduced speeds mean that air resistance and slipstreaming have less of an effect when climbing. In the mountains a rider has to fight against his own weight, so the mountains favour riders with the highest power to weight ratio.

But that isn’t the whole story. Cycling is a complicated sport, and long stage races like the Tour de France are its most complicated arena. A good mountain climber might have a phenomenally high power to weight ratio, but that could be because he is incredibly light and his absolute power is quite low, which is a limiting factor in a time trial. So although a Tour de France winner must excel in the mountains, and climbing specialists have won the race, he must still be able to ride a fair time trial. In fact, broadly speaking, there are two kinds of Tour winners; time trial specialists who can limit their losses in the mountains, and climbers who can do the same in a time trial.

There are also differences in the way overall contenders go about racing uphill. Some riders, the ones who are good at time trials and can climb well, favour setting a high average pace in an attempt to slowly burn off all the others. Whereas climbing specialists will make violent changes of pace, attacking and being caught before attacking again until their rivals are exhausted by chasing them.

They are the riders who win the King of the Mountains title in the Tour de France, The competition started in the 1933 Tour de France, and is based on points awarded for the first riders over each climb of the Tour. The number of points and how far down the field they go depends on the severity of each climb. They are ranked from third category for hills and small passes, to first category for bigger climbs. Then there is a category the French call Hors Categorie, or beyond category, for the real giants.

The leader of the King of the Mountains competition wears a distinctive red and white polka-dot jersey. The design for that came from the fact that when it was first awarded as the symbol of leadership in this section of the race, the sponsor of the mountains competition was a chocolate manufacturer, whose wrappers were white with red polka-dots on them.

The King’s story

A Spaniard called Vicente Trueba, who was nicknamed the Torrelavega Flea because he was so slight, was the first winner of the King of the Mountains title. Many great climbers and Tour winners have gone on to win the title, including the Italians Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi, but in the mid-1950s the title was taken by two of the greatest climbers the Tour de France has ever seen, Frederico Bahamontes of Spain and Luxembourg’s Charly Gaul.

Bahamontes, who journalists christened the Eagle of Toledo, and Gaul, who they referred to as the Angel of the Mountains, both went on to win the Tour de France overall, and Bahamontes was six times the King of the Mountains champion. They were both capable of attacking early on a mountain stage and decimating the entire field. That was how they won their Tours.

Bahamontes might have won more than once, only his career overlapped that of Jacques Anquetil, and their battles were a classic confrontation of a time trial specialist who could climb against a pure climber. Anquetil was the time trial specialist and was content to limit his losses on the climbs, but on occasions, and especially against Bahamontes, he had to climb incredibly well to do that.

Their battles came to a head in the 1963 Tour de France on the Col de la Forclaz. Bahamontes, in the yellow jersey, was determined to destroy Anquetil that day and win his second Tour de France, but Anquetil knew that he couldn’t let him have any more of a lead. He had to stay with the Spanish climbing star, and he had to summon all of his strength to do it. Anquetil suffered, but he clung onto the Spaniard, surviving all his attacks. He even beat Bahamontes to the line at the end of the stage. Later, Anquetil won the final time trial and his fourth Tour de France.

The best ever

There have been many such epic contests over the years, but who is the best Tour de France climber ever? There are many candidates, but I’ll go for the man who Bahamontes says is best. After all, can there be a better judge? His name is Lucien Van Impe. He is from the flat fields of Flanders in Belgium, but no one could accelerate uphill like Van Impe could.

He is a short man, light but not a featherweight. He won the King of the Mountains six times, but always says he backed off winning a seventh because of respect for Bahamontes. Van Impe also won the Tour overall in 1976. He often says that climbing mountains is an art rather than a science, and spent weeks each year before the Tour de France training in the Alps or Pyrenees to try and discover his climbing rhythm.

The Tour de France still throws up great climbers. Lucho Herrera from Colombia and Claudio Chiappucci of Italy were two of the best. In 2004 Frenchman Richard Virenque completed a record seven King of the Mountains titles, which he usually won by attacking early on the first day in the mountains to get a strangle hold on the competition, then chasing every point on offer after that. Marco Pantani never was King of the Mountains, although he was a climber who won the Tour overall for Italy in 1998. The Tour winner in 2007, Alberto Contador of Spain, is an excellent climber, and the winner of the 2007 mountains title, Colombian Mauricio Soler, looks to have a good future ahead of him.

A cyclist’s eye view of the start of a Tour climb

Blueprint for a Tour

Every year the Tour de France plays out to a pattern. After the first range of mountains, which in some years are the Pyrenees and in others the Alps, there are usually some flattish stages. On these the sprinters in the race, who never have a good time when the roads go upwards, fight for the stage victories, while the overall contenders try to stay out of trouble and conserve their energy for the next set of mountains. These stages are called transition stages, and they are often in the south of France, so are characterised by sun and warm weather and the compelling picture of glittering bikes and bright colours streaming through a patchwork of vineyards, sunflowers and lavender fields.

The second major mountain range often decides the winner of the Tour de France. Most years there are a number of riders who still have a chance at the beginning of this part of the race, but coming out of the second mountains there is often just one man left with a commanding lead. On the occasions where that doesn‘t happen, a time trial held on the penultimate or even last day of the race will decide the outcome.

Many things can cause riders to come unstuck in the second set of big mountain stages. Riders who are strong in the Alps can find the Pyrenees less to their liking, because the climbs of the two ranges are different. Alpine climbs tend to have uniform gradients, the Pyrenees don’t, and even the weather can be different. Another problem is cumulative fatigue. Most pro riders perform well for two weeks, but only the best are strong in the third week of the Tour de France.

The mountains are crucial to the Tour. Their evocative names; the Galibier, Alpe d’Huez, Mont Ventoux, the Tourmalet and Peyresourde are mentioned in the sporting press for months before and after each race. They roll from the tongue as fans argue about who will be strong and where. Fathers tell their children stories about these places, and old men look back at when they raced and dreamed of conquering their lofty peaks.

The mountains are theatre in which the Tour de France is played out in front of its most loyal fans. On the biggest peaks the diehards will arrive with their tents and camper vans up to three days before the race is due to pass. On the day there can be as many as half a million people on one climb, all cheering, drinking, eating and sharing the moment in a big party.

The mountains are where the greatest battles of this historic race have been enacted, and its tragedies played out. In the heat of competition they are fearsome places to be, but away from that, taken at whatever pace you decide, conquering their slopes is something that any reasonably fit cyclist with the proper equipment can do. I hope that this book will help you on your way.

Lucien Van Impe – simply the best © Universal/TempSport/Corbis

The mountains of the Tour de France

They have been part of the Tour almost since it started. The mountains of France have been the Tour’s theatre, where its dramas, its successes, failures and tragedies have been played out.

Anyone with designs on winning the race has to master the mountains, has to be able to soar upwards in defiance of gravity. To see some of the great climbers of this race is to witness a combination of brute force and ballet. Such men appear to have wings on their feet as they dance effortlessly upwards.

Of course it’s not like that at all. It takes years of hard work and application, natural talent, supreme physical fitness and sometimes shear bravery to take on these giant climbs at race pace.

But the bike is a truly beautiful machine. While the racers of this world will use theirs to force their way up the gradients, set records, break personal bests and punish the opposition, others prefer to shift down a gear and take their time.

The mountains belong to both, to all of us really. If you enjoy cycling you can enjoy climbing the mountains of the Tour de France in your own way, and what a lot there is waiting for you.

From the intimacy of the Vosges, through the dark and rugged Massif Central, to the unpredictable Pyrenees and the off-the-scale splendour of the Alps, all of the French mountains are accessible to cyclists. A bit of training, a bit of application, a bit of know how, a sound bike and the mountains are yours for ever. Enjoy!

The mountains of the Tour de France
‘HOW TO RIDE THEM’

Climb every mountain, or so the song goes. And with the right equipment, preparation, a bit of technique and the correct mental approach you can do just that. You can climb every mountain of the Tour de France.

The mountains are a huge challenge in a race, they separate the champions from the very best in the sport, but any averagely fit person who has done a bit of training can get to the top of them, too. Slower yes, much slower in many cases, but that’s not the point. Mountain climbs are a personal challenge and all that matters is that you enjoy your journey to the top.

So what is needed to take on the mountains of the Tour de France? The first answer is obviously a bike. But just any bike? Well, basically yes. The pros in the Tour de France ride on road race bikes made from the latest space-age materials at a cost of thousands of pounds a piece, but you can climb the Tour de France mountains on a road bike, a mountain bike or a hybrid bike. The latter being a bike with some of the features of both road and mountain bikes. All these bikes are suitable for climbing mountains, although you might want to swap some of the equipment on yours to make life easier when you do.

Road bikes

These are what are classically called race bikes. They have dropped handlebars, thin tyres and multiple gears. Entry level models costs about £400 and the amount you pay, as with most things in life, reflects the quality and sophistication of the machine. However, you don’t have to break the bank to buy a good bike. What you are looking for in a road bike suitable for climbing mountains are lightness and gear ratios low enough to allow you to pedal up the climbs in a seated position, and at a reasonably high cadence.

This is the crux of climbing up mountains. You can muscle your way up a short hill by climbing out of the saddle to put more power into the pedals, but you can’t climb the mountains of the Tour de France like that. Not even the pros can. The Tour de France climbs are long, and sometimes they are long and steep. You have to take your time with them. You have to gear down and ride within yourself.

There are two options that give you the low gear ratios you need for climbing Tour de France mountains: triple or compact chainsets. Chainsets are the part of a bike’s drive train that the pedals are attached to. Gear ratios are determined by the size of the chainring on a chainset and the size of the teethed sprockets on the rear wheel. Small chainrings and large sprockets give you low gears, so on a triple chainset there is an extra small chainring, and on compact chainsets both chainrings are smaller than standard.

What goes up must come down

The best system is the compact system because it is the simplest to use, and it’s lighter. You don’t lose high gears either, because most road bikes now have nine or ten sprockets on the rear wheel, more than enough to provide a wide range of gear ratios.

You can buy bikes with triple or compact chainsets, but it’s quite a simple procedure to fit one and adapt almost any road bike to work with them. A good bike shop will advise you on the swap, and happily take on the job if you don’t want to do it.

Touring bikes and cyclo-cross bikes are classified by shops with road bikes. These come equipped with low gears already, so there is no problem there in using either of them to climb mountains. However, cyclo-cross bike have tyres with heavy knobbly treads to give you grip when riding on loose or muddy cross-country surfaces. You should swap these tyres for smooth road tyres if you want to use a cyclo-cross bike in the mountains.

Mountain bikes

Mountain bikes have triple chainsets and very low gears, but their tyres are designed to grip in even worse conditions than cyclo-cross tyres, so they are especially heavy and will cause excessive drag on the hard-surfaced roads of the mountain climbs.

You need to swap these for what mountain bikers call slicks. They are the same diameter as normal mountain bike tyres, but come in a number of widths. As a general point wider tyres are more comfortable to ride on than narrow ones, but no mountain bike slicks are that narrow for this to become an issue. So go for the narrowest you can get.

Otherwise your mountain bike is excellent for climbing mountains, and especially good for descending them. Mountain bikes have a low centre of gravity and they are longer than the equivalent-sized road bike, so they are very secure when cornering.

Hybrid bikes

In many respects these are a best of both worlds bike. They have the flat handlebars of a mountain bike, a wide range of gear ratios provided by triple chainsets. And if you get a more street-oriented hybrid bike, which most new ones are today, it will have slick tyres on it already.

Pedals

Bikes have three sorts of pedals. Flat pedals on which you just place your feet and push down. Pedals with toe clips and straps, where your feet can pull up on the clips as well as push down on the pedals. And by far the best system for climbing mountains, clipless pedals.

These work by inserting a cleat, which is fixed to the sole of a specialist cycling shoe, into a spring-loaded retaining mechanism on the pedal. Once engaged your foot is always in contact with the pedal, and the muscles of your legs can input power throughout the whole 360 degrees of every pedal revolution. All you do to disengage your foot from the pedal is twist it sideways. They take a bit of practice to get used to but are very efficient and totally safe.

Bike preparation

No matter how light and sophisticated your bike is, it needs to be well maintained at all times, and it needs some extra close attention before you venture into the mountains. But before that it pays to get into the habit of going through some basic safety checks before every ride.

Check your bike’s frame for cracks. Apply each brake in turn while pushing your bike forward. With the front brake on the front wheel should not turn. The same goes for the rear brake with the rear wheel. Check all brake cables and housings for signs of wear, and replace them if you see any. Check your tyres, replacing them if you find any excessive wear, cuts or bulges. Finally, shift through all the gears and make sure that they mesh properly and that the chain doesn’t jump around.

Elbows out, shoulders relaxed and breathe deeply © Luc Claessen

Do a more detailed check whenever you clean your bike, which is something you should do regularly anyway. You must also carry out a regular service on your bike. There are many good bike maintenance books available to help you, but most bike shops will look after your bike if you don’t want to do it yourself.

Before a ride check that your tyres are pumped up to the recommendations that are usually printed on the tyre. Make sure anything you have fastened onto the bike, like a drinking bottle, a bag or a tyre inflator is safe. And always have another shift through all your gears while riding on the flat somewhere before you start to climb. If you can’t get bottom gear the whole experience might be ruined.

Physical preparation

Climbing some of the easier Tour de France mountains is within the scope of almost any reasonably fit and healthy person, given a bike that is in good condition, is fitted with low enough gears, and provided the rider takes his or her time. However, some of the bigger climbs, the most famous ones in fact, do require some physical training. And in any case, the fitter you are the more enjoyable the whole experience will be.

Without trying to state the obvious, the best way to get fit for cycling is to ride your bike regularly, but that doesn’t mean that other physical exercise is of no use. One of the biggest factors that will impact how quickly you can ride a bike uphill is your body weight, or more particularly your power to weight ratio.

There is no doubt that being active helps to keep your weight down, so any activity is good activity as far as this is concerned. Linked with a varied diet of good wholesome food, and perhaps a little restraint with regard to eating the classic weight-gaining foods like cakes and chocolate, plenty of varied physical activity is a good foundation on which to build some specific cycling fitness.

If possible you should add some form of resistance training to your varied programme, concentrating on your leg muscles. This helps to build up the power side of the power to weight equation. Then if you include three or more bike-riding sessions a week for about two months before tackling the mountain climbs, you should be ready. The bike sessions don’t all have to be on the road, although at least one should be. You can use a gym fitness bike or put your own bike on a turbo trainer and ride indoors.

Once you are riding regularly you should start to seek out some hills in your neighbourhood. The longer these are the more benefit they will have on your ability to master Tour de France mountains. You can also simulate long climbs on indoor bikes by upping the resistance on the machine you are using.

Whatever way you choose to begin your specific mountain climbing preparation, try to ride all the uphill parts on your routes by sitting on your saddle and spinning your legs in a low gear. Concentrate on relaxing your upper body and breathing deeply and rhythmically. Occasionally you should ride a hill in a little higher gear, both in the seated position and out of the saddle, to help build up some functional muscular strength. And there is nothing wrong with riding up a hill, turning around carefully at the top, descending and doing it again.

All the advice in the last paragraph comes from the man who many recognise as the best mountain racer ever, Lucien Van Impe of Belgium. He says; “I spent weeks before every Tour de France learning to spin my legs quickly on the climbs. I would try to match my breathing with the rhythm of my legs. When I was a pro rider I practised in the Pyrenees, but when I was a young amateur I trained near where I live in the north of Belgium. There are no mountains there, so I would ride up and down the same hill maybe ten times.”

Sit up to breathe easy – 2007 King of the Mountains Mauricio Soler shows how © Luc Claessen