Cycling hard and high on a Tour of his own

June 26, 2011|By Lane Turner, Globe Staff

LUZ SAINT SAUVEUR, France — Andy Schleck had to attack. The fight for the yellow jersey, worn by the leader of the Tour de France, would be settled on the Col du Tourmalet. Alberto Contador wore the jersey and Schleck wanted it back. So up through the mist they dueled, parting the crowd lining the steep and twisting Pyrenean mountain pass. Again and again Schleck tried to drop his rival, and each time Contador answered with a burst of his own, their bikes churning violently side to side.

The most exciting day of the 2010 Tour, which Contador won, took place on the Tourmalet, one of the race’s most often used climbs. It was a fitting battle for the mountain, where such heroics have occurred over the past hundred years. As every cycling fan knows, the race is won in the mountains, and more Tours have been decided on the Tourmalet than on any other.

I had my own battle with the Tourmalet in the form of the sharp rock that ripped a hole in the casing of my bike’s rear tire. A punctured inner tube is an easy fix, but a ripped tire casing could have ended my ride, and I was nearly 7,000 feet up the frigid mountain and miles from any bike shop. I folded a 10 euro note and some gaffer tape into the tire and hoped it would hold my patched-up tube inside as the wet chill seeped into my numbing fingers.

Even shivering in the mist on the Tourmalet is an unforgettable joy. My wife, best friend, and I had come to bike the most famous ascents of the Tour, which started in 1903. The route changes every year, but a handful of storied climbs are used over and over and draw cyclists from all over the world. We would ride five of them, arcing through France from the Alps to Provence to the Pyrenees. Four of our climbs will feature prominently in the 2011 race, which starts in Passage du Gois July 2, and finishes on the Champs-Élysées in Paris three weeks later.