What Goes Up at the Tour, Descends Dangerously Fast
Pascal Guyot/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
For racers on bikes traveling 40 miles per hour, the road descending from la Rochette into Gap is terrifying.
By JAMES DAO
Published: July 16, 2013
GAP, France — The road descending from la Rochette into Gap is picture-book pretty. A valley dotted with red-tile roofs and tawny wheat fields opens before it. The snowy crags of the high Alps rise behind. Rustic farmhouses and purple wildflowers line its shoulders.
Laurent Cipriani/Associated Press
Overall leader Christopher Froome of Britain, left, and Spain's Alberto Contador, right, sped down a pass in the last kilometers of the sixteenth stage of the Tour de France on Tuesday.
For hikers, it is idyllic. For drivers, tricky. For racers on bikes traveling 40 miles per hour, terrifying. The road is twisting and steep, too narrow for compact cars to pass, with switchbacks that arrive shockingly fast. Innumerable ridges and barely-filled potholes in the pavement jolt even heavy vehicles.
It was here during the 2003 Tour de France that a top rider, Joseba Beloki, let fly, hoping to drop the race leader, Lance Armstrong. Instead, his front wheel slid on tar softened by the July heat and sent him tumbling. The crash effectively ended Beloki’s promising career and provided a stark reminder of an old saying: races are rarely won on descents, but they can be lost.
On Tuesday, as the 16th stage of the Tour came storming through these Alpine foothills, the dangerous descent from la Rochette almost took another big victim: Chris Froome of Sky, the race leader, who went off the road while swerving around the third-place rider, Alberto Contador of Saxo-Tinkoff.
In a near replay of the 2003 crash, Froome had been chasing Contador after the Spanish rider had tried to pedal away before the summit of the Col de Manse, hoping to trim his deficit and, perhaps, force the leader into a rash move. But when Contador momentarily lost control on a hairpin turn, Froome was forced into the grass.
Neither man was hurt and they leapt back on their bikes to finish with another group of contenders who, following Tour etiquette, had slowed to let them catch up. As a result the top three places in the race remained unchanged, with Froome retaining the yellow jersey, followed by Bauke Mollema of Belkin 4 minutes 14 seconds back and Contador 4:25 behind.
But after the race Froome made clear his displeasure with Contador for taking chances on an unsafe descent. “I personally think teams are starting to get desperate now and therefore taking uncalculated risks,” he told reporters.
Rui Costa, a Portuguese rider with Movistar, won the stage after joining a breakaway of about two dozen riders that built a lead of more than seven minutes on the main field. Costa, who has won the last two Tours of Switzerland, accelerated away from the group on the final climb and won by 42 seconds.
On Wednesday, a hilly time trial is expected to play to Froome’s strengths. But the stage is also likely to feature a fierce battle among the riders trying to reach the podium in Paris. Thursday will provide perhaps the most awaited stage of the Tour: a double ascent of towering Alpe d’Huez.
Between the two climbs, the riders will face a treacherous descent, off the Col de Sarrene along a back road that has never been used in the Tour before. Several riders, including Tony Martin of Omega Pharma-Quick Step, have raised concerns about the safety of the road, which is bumpy and lacks guard rails.
“It is a very dangerous descent,” Froome said Tuesday. “It’s not smooth, that’s for sure. There aren’t any barriers on the corners. If you go over the corner, you will fall down a long way.”
“Like we’ve seen today, this race is far from over,” he added. “One incident, one mechanical, or one crash in the wrong moment and your Tour can be over.”
Indeed, at this point in the three-week race, when the yellow jersey is trying to stay safe while his rivals are trying to pressure him into dangerous mistakes, descents become all the more crucial. Yet, descending remains the forgotten stepchild of bike racing, with far more attention given to climbing, sprinting and time trialing.
To casual observers, riders flying at speeds in excess of 50 miles per hour downhill may appear to be taking a break after a hard climb. But far from it. With so many dangers to worry about, including gravel, holes, wet spots and unexpectedly sharp turns, the riders must remain intensely focused. A crash would not just cost a rider time; it would probably end his race.
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