Tour Climbs: The complete guide to every mountain stage on the Tour de France. Chris Sidwells
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