Tour de France
Tour snapshot: Only at Alpe d'Huez: It's Christmas in July

By Mark Akins
Seattle Times staff

MARK AKINS, THE SEATTLE TIMES, 2003 Hours before the racers’ arrival last year, nearly every foot of the road to the ski resort of L’Alpe d’Huez is already painted with the names of Tour de France spectators’ favorite riders.

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It's Christmas Day for cycling fans.

The Tour de France visits Alpe d'Huez today for the 24th time, but this year is a little different. For the first time, a time trial will be held on the fabled Big Daddy of the Alps.

The mountain and its 21 punishing hairpin turns are always a big lure, and why not? The crowds and the stakes are usually gigantic, and few settings are more spectacular.

Cycle Sport magazine once described the scene as "a mountainside close to vertical, lined with spectators like gannets on a cliff."

In last year's Tour, Lance Armstrong took the yellow jersey for good at Alpe d'Huez before a sun-baked crowd estimated by The Associated Press at half a million. CBS guessed 600,000.

The 3,600-foot climb is a do-or-die gut check for Tour de France riders, not to mention recreational cyclists who grind it out to the top to watch the finish.

Today, because it's a time trial (a race against the clock), Marco Pantani's unofficial record of 37 minutes, 35 seconds for the climb will almost certainly come tumbling down. Pantani set the record in 1997 at the end of a 126-mile mountain stage. Today's time-trial riders will start fresh.

It's Christmas morning. And the clock is ticking.

Mark Akins: 206-464-8994 or makins@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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