Tour de France 2024

Already the discussion has started. Will are Cav be riding?

I’m not sure if this is the right thread but:

My girlfriend and me are heading to the Galibier stage of the Tour de France this year and we’ll have some time in the area.
We plan to ride Alp d’huez and I’m wondering if anyone has any other climb recommendations or routes in the area?

The road through the hills on the opposite side of alpe duez villard notre dam . Nice cafe at the top then drop down the back down the ornon

^

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Agree with that ^ the road to Villard Notre dame and then the mild gravel road to col du solude is great.

Alpe d'huez has great graffitti but the col de sarenne would be the better climb. I'd say essential really. It's a bumpy but beautiful descent if you do it that way.

There's also a very tasty gravel "road" from albanette / col d'albanne that takes you to Valloire and then Galibier if you choose.

Frankly it's well explored territory and you can't go far wrong. This is the bible:

https://www.cycling-challenge.com/

Tour goes through my in-laws village again!

That sucks. Fortunately plenty of other stages to choose from ;)

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/16682214/

Ob "Shelf Road" mention. TCR parcours from one of the years I rode it and we rode it again during Mille du Sud.

Thank you for the suggestions guys. We’re putting together a nice route now.

Another question that I have is how early do you think we should arrive at the Galibier?
I’ve never been to a mountain stage of the tour before and I know it will be super busy. Should we arrive a couple of days before and try to camp on the climb?

3-4 hours or the road gets closed

take a warm jacket

It’s such a great road

Col du Glandon is a really nice climb. You can stop for a drink at the first col or carry on the the Col de la Croix de Fer (you can see it from the Glandon). To get to the foot of the climb ride down to Allemont from Bourg D’Oisans on the road by the river. Not the main road that we used to use and is awful.

The ride from Bourg up to the Lauteret isn’t fun as it’s a main road to Italy. It probably won’t be so bad on race day as that border road is being used for the race I think and so will be closed. But of course lots of cars will be driving to the stage too.

At the end of this ride there was a great cycle cafe/bar. Lovely and shady for a recovery ride but I can’t see any reference to it now. Perhaps it didn’t survive Covid
https://strava.app.link/L5CEDHI68Jb

This is a nice route. Not too hard and amazing views. We were staying in Allemont.
https://strava.app.link/wwYFpNb78Jb

And for a big day out…
https://www.strava.com/activities/12538589

You can take these as the max time you’ll take as I’m no mountain goat.

We were over there staying in a gite at a nearby lake/dam when Cadel won the Tour. I did Croix de Fer in the pissing rain, freezing my tits off while everyone else waited and did it later in the day. Who knew you could do that, eh? Galibier was snowing and even colder.
This was the year I learned about things call "altitude" and "variable mountain weather"

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Not all views are the same…

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UAE are not fucking about

🇸🇮 Tadej Pogačar
🇬🇧 Adam Yates
🇪🇸 Juan Ayuso
🇵🇹 Joao Almeida
🇪🇸 Marc Soler
🇫🇷 Pavel Sivakov
🇧🇪 Tim Wellens
🇩🇪 Nils Politt

That's not official yet, is it? I'd be surprised if that is the final team, I think they'd need someone other than Politt for the flatter stages.

Well it was a quote from Pogacar so that was probably the list at some point

Thank you very much.

soler ayuso almeida trident! pog as super donestique. perfect!!

They are taking the wrong Marc though

True.

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when Cadel won the Tour

Hahahah!
So I looked this up and apparently (in this universe) he did!

So funny. Where I'm from he didn't even podium and the 2011 GC was won by Contador who took to the winners podium dressed as a matador.

(also the Schleck brothers were mountainbiker and rally driver respectively and never competed on the road)

I'm going to be in Nice with my bike for the final weekend of the Tour. Does anyone know the area well and can suggest a good place to watch stage 20 Nice -> Col de la Couillole?

https://www.strava.com/routes/3230123320844735554

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Sepp Kuss ruled out of the tour (not recovered from covid?!). Visma bad luck strikes again.

“ when Cadel won the Tour”
That was the Tour of Woollaroo or maybe it was It the Tasman Tour?
He breeds Pomeranians now and is having far more success than when he was a sports cyclist.