The yellow jersey is still up for grabs with less than a week to go in the 2006 Tour de France, and the hardest and most exciting stages of the race start today with an epic ride to L’Alpe d’Huez. And though there’s no way to replicate the fabled 21 switchbacks of Stage 15’s final ascent, Front Range cyclists can get an idea of how difficult today’s stage is by riding the route for Colorado’s annual Triple Bypass ride.
Both routes are about 120 miles long, climb three major mountains and feature a bit more than 10,000 vertical feet of climbing. Now, before the physiologists and folks with the topo maps get too riled up about the details, I realize there are several serious differences between the routes.
The most important of these is the altitude. The Triple Bypass starts in Evergreen and ascends over Juniper Pass (11,140 feet), Loveland Pass (11,990), and Vail Pass (10,500) before descending to the finish in Avon. In comparison, the highest point on Stage 15 is just 7,750 feet at the top of the Col d’Izoard. I’ve got to give the T-Pass a point for that kind of thin air.
In terms of time in the saddle, some Triple Bypass riders complete the event in anywhere from 6 1/2 to eight hours, and many take up to 10 hours. The winning time for Stage 15 most likely will be just less than six hours if the racers choose to ride aggressively from the start, or closer to 6:30 if they take it easy for the first 40 miles. But because of differences in altitude, motivation (Triple Bypass is a challenge, but not a race), and the route, neither event earns more difficulty points for time in the saddle.
The Triple Bypass also starts with a 12-mile climb right out of Evergreen, whereas the first 40 miles of Stage 15 are over rolling terrain. And where the Colorado ride ends with about a 25-mile descent into Avon to reach the finish line, Stage 15 riders have to survive a final lung- and leg-searing climb which rises 3,700 feet in just 8.7 miles. To put that in perspective, the road over Juniper Pass, the first climb of the Triple Bypass, has a similar elevation gain but is not as steep, taking 3 to 4 more miles to meander its way to the top.
Yet, there’s nothing quite like the experience of reaching the bottom of a monstrous climb after more than 100 miles of riding, looking up toward the summit and knowing you have to climb all the way up there to get to the finish line. If you really want to design a ride in Colorado that would be even closer to the demands of Stage 15 of the 2006 Tour de France, you could add about 20 miles of riding on rolling hills around Avon, Minturn and Vail (if those roads exist) and then ride the Triple Bypass route backwards to finish atop Juniper Pass. Compared to the actual Triple Bypass route, I’d have to give Stage 15 at least a point for difficulty because of the summit finish.
Oh, and there’s one more massive difference between Stage 15 and any ride you can come up with in the Colorado Rockies. Before the Tour de France starts today, the riders will have covered 1,660 miles in 15 days of racing, at an average speed of almost 26 mph. Think about that the next time you tackle an epic one-day ride in the mountains, and you’ll just begin to get an idea of what a three-week stage race is like.
For more information on the latest in training, fitness and nutrition from Chris Carmichael and the coaches at Carmichael Training Systems, go to www.trainright.com/newsletter.
