The Great Bike Race by Geoffrey Nicholson

Author:Geoffrey Nicholson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Velodrome Publishing
Published: 2016-03-20T16:00:00+00:00

9

– Roads of the Cross –

Alpe d’Huez, 4 JULY

In the biblical metaphors of French reporting, where a rider’s saddle sore becomes his cavalry, and the word ‘agony’ is charged with New Testament overtones, the ninth stage of the Tour is, in several estimations, a road of the cross. It is also, quite simply, a cross-roads. Starting from Divonne it runs through the Haute-Savoie and Savoie towards two looming summits in the Isère: the col du Luitel at 208 kilometres and the Alpe d’Huez, where it drags upwards to its close after 258 kilometres. The riders approach it with apprehension, the followers with greedy curiosity. Even the most fearful mountain stage can be inconclusive if the climbers fail, or don’t choose, to press home their advantage to the finish. But a stage which ends on the top of a mountain cannot really fail to scatter the field. If we don’t have a new leader by the end of the day, we shall certainly have a new chain of command.

Setting off at eight in the morning, the riders briefly show the flag in Switzerland where, by the vagaries of Continental time this summer, it is an hour earlier. It is also Sunday morning, when even the Swiss relax a little, and understandably there are few people on the streets. Those who come to the gates and balconies in their dressing gowns are visibly unexcited, and the riders are doing little to stir their interest. The speed is down to a steady thirty kph — under nineteen mph — a pace they could maintain for twenty-four hours if need be, and there is a tacit truce in force. It is as if opposing forces had decided to cut costs and take the same excursion coach to the battlefield.

Back in France and back on schedule, they now begin ploughing over a hill which, on a lowlier stage, would have been worth at least third-category points. But now crossing the summit must be its own reward, and at the same loping pace they spend four hours winding through the passes and valleys of the alpine foothills, here with open views of crags and mountains, there along a narrow corridor of rock, and nearly everywhere with a ribbon of spectators on either side. The sultriness has been washed from the air, but once the sun breaks clear the riders are not disposed to raise a sweat. The Alps are bridges to be crossed when they are reached.

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