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It is amazing anyone finishes the Tour de France, let alone wins

Roar Pro
19th July, 2014
8

I don’t think many Australians understand just how difficult completing the Tour of France actually is. As the tour undertakes its first serious mountain stage, allow me to let you in on what that means.

A quick background for those unacquainted with ‘le Tour’. The Tour is a 21-stage, 23-day race consisting of a course covering 3664 kilometres, with some mountains thrown in for good measure.

Sounds like a fair way? Yep, it sure is.

That’s the distance from Cairns to Melbourne, then another 800 kilometres. Broken down, with the two rest days, that is roughly 170 kilometres a day.

To put that into perspective, for an amateur cyclist, 200 kilometres in a week is an achievement in itself. These 170 kilometres represent roughly 4.5 hours on the bike each day for the riders – for three weeks.

But that represents the average day.

The stage last night was a tough day, worse still, the first of about nine days straight in the mountains. This particular task required the riders to finish the stage atop an 18 kilometre, 7.5 per cent gradient climb. The stage finished with a 1500-metre vertical climb to Chamrousse.

The highest road in Australia is about 1200 metres above sea level.

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Many Brisbane amateur riders attempt Mt Cootha, a decent 300-metre high climb and a generously steep eight per cent incline.

To put that into perspective, the climb to finish last night’s stage was six times longer and at a similar intensity to the toughest climb in Brisbane. It was also the third climb to be undertaken by the riders in ‘le Tour’ that day.

Cycling is far and away the most physically enduring of sports to master.

Long have comparisons between sports been made. Presumably, when the first fisherman said to the first hunter he had had a tougher day than him, the whole argument began. Many years may have passed, but tough endurance events still evoke a common appreciation from the common man.

As a non athlete, I marvel at this competition.

Last night, from my armchair, I travelled through France. I dined in the finest châteaux’s with the finest of French nobility and I enjoyed the fullest of the European summer suns’ rays upon my skin.

I might say the standard of wine is slipping – I may have been had at the battleship, he assured me it was vintage – but the standards of the race have never been higher. The commentary was excellent and fully belies the importance the original creator had in mind.

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As Desgrange always intended, the race is as much a tour of his country, as it is a race. Get on board, the finest athletes from around the world fighting it out for the most important of endurance prizes.

Vive le Tour! Long live the finishers.

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