Greatest cycling climbs #15 Alpe d'Huez (PART 1/2)

The 21 Alpe d'Huez hairpins
(from Wikipedia)

INCLUDING VIDEO FROM THE DUTCH CORNER!


ALPE D'HUEZ

Location: Rhone-Alpes, France
Altitude: 1815 m
Lenght of the climb: 14.454 m
Height difference: 1071 m
Average gradient: 7.9 %
Maximum gradient: 14.0 %
Hairpins: 21 (the holy number of Alpe d'Huez)

Yet one of the most famous mountain climbs on the Tour de France, the Alpe d'Huez  is certainly not the toughest one. The Tour de France first finished a stage on Alpe d'Huez in 1952. The climb has hairpin bends marked with panels honouring the winners of each stage that has finished there. There were too many when the race made the 22nd climb in 2001 so naming restarted at the bottom with Lance Armstrong's name added to Coppi's.

The Alpe d'Huez is situated in Rhone-Alpes and belongs to the Alps. Starting from Bourg d'Oisans, the Alpe d'Huez ascent is 14.454 m long. Over this distance, you climb 1071 heightmeters. The average percentage is thus 7.9 %.

Alpe d'Huez and Tour de France

The Alpe d'Huez is one of the legendary ascents in the Tour de France. It has figured as a stage finish almost every year since 1976, although absent from the route in both 2009 and 2010, the first time since 1976 that it has missed two consecutive years. It is a favourite on all Tour de France anniversary years.

The first time Alpe d'Huez was included in the Tour was in 1952, won by Fausto Coppi. The race was brought to the mountain by Élie Wermelinger, the chief commissaire or referee. He drove his Dyna-Panhard car between snow banks that lined the road in March 1952, invited by a consortium of businesses who had
opened hotels at the summit. Their leader was Georges Rajon, who ran the Hotel Christina. The ski station there opened in 1936. Wermelinger reported to the organiser, Jacques Goddet, and the Tour signed a contract with the businessmen to include the Alpe. It cost them the modern equivalent of € 3.250.

In 1952, Coppi attacked 6 kilometres from the summit to rid himself of the French rider, Jean Robic. He turned the Alpe d'Huez into an instant legend because this was the year that motorcycle television crews first came to the Tour de France. It was also the Tour's first mountain-top finish. After 1952 and Fausto Coppi, however, the Alpe d'Huez was dropped until 1964 and then again until 1976.

The veteran reporter, Jacques Augendre, said: "The Tourmalet, the Galibier and the Izoard were the mythical mountains of the race. These three cols were supplante by the Alpe d'Huez. Why? Because it's the col of modernity. Coppi's victory in 1952 was the symbol of a golden age of cycling, that of champions [such as] Coppi, Bartali, Kubler, Koblet, and Bobet. But only Coppi and Armstrong have been able to take the Maillot Jaune on the Alpe and to keep it to Paris."

That's not by chance. From the first edition, no other stage has had such drama. With its 21 bends, it's gradient and the number of spectators, it is a climb in the style of Hollywood. The veteran reporter should have included the name Fignon along with Coppi and Armstrong. Laurent Fignon took yellow on the Alpe - without winning the stage - in 1983, 1984, and 1989. He held it into Paris in 1983 and 1984 but in 1989 he lost it on the final stage to Paris, a time trial, to Greg LeMond to finish second by 8 seconds, the closest finish in the Tour de France history ever.

French journalist and L'Equipe sportswriter Jean-Paul Vespini wrote a book about Alpe d'Huez and its role in the Tour de France: "The Tour Is Won on the Alpe: Alpe d'Huez and the Classic Battles of the Tour de France".



 Alpe d'Huez profile (from: climbbybike.com)


Alpe d'Huez and spectators

The Alpe d'Huez has chaotic crowds of spectators. In 1999, Giuseppe Guerini won despite being knocked off by a spectator who stepped into his path to take a photograph. The 2004 individual time trial became chaotic when fans pushed riders toward the top. Attendance figures on the mountain have to be treated with caution. A million spectators were claimed to be there in 1997. Eric Muller, the mayor of Alpe d'Huez, however, said there were 350.000 in 2001, four years later despite acceptance that the number rises every year. "We expect more than 400.000 people for the centenary race in 2003", he said.

The Dutch Corner, Tour de France 2011.
(photo: Touho Häkkinen)

The Dutch Mountain

The Alpe d'Hues is called the "Dutch Mountain", baceuse a Dutchman won eight of the first 14 finishes.However, the Dutch have won none of the last 13 stages, however; six have been won by Italians, three by Americans, twice by Spaniards, one by Fränk Schleck of Luxembourg, and the most recent in 2011 by French cyclist Pierre Rolland.






The writer Geoffrey Nicholson said: "The attraction of opposites draws them [Dutch spectators] from the Low Countries to the Alps each summer in any case. But all winter in the Netherlands coach companies offer two or three nights at Alpe d'Huez as a special feature of their alpine tours. And those Dutch families who don't come by coach, park their campers and pitch their tents along the narrow ledges beside the road like sea-birds nesting at St Kilda. The Dutch haven't adopted the Alpe d'Huez simply because it is sunny and agreeable, or even because the modern, funnel-shaped church, Notre Dame des Neiges, has a Dutch priest, Father Reuten (until a few years ago, it was used as a press room and was probably the only church in France where, for one day at least, there were ashtrays in the nave and a bar in the vestry, or where an organist was once asked to leave because he was disturbing the writers' concentration). No, what draws the Dutch to Alpe d'Huez is the remarkable run of success their riders have had there."

See the video from the Dutch Corner 2011; the crowd celebrating 4 hours before the Tour stage leaders are cycling up the mountain! (video: Mr Touho "Martti" Häkkinen and Hevoskuuri)

 

Check here: Greatest cycling climbs #15 Alpe d'Huez (PART 2/2)
(with all winners, significant Alpe d'Hues stages, and climbing times)

See our articles from other great road cycling climbs here!