What's to Come in The Tour's Stage 16?
The 16th Stage of the 2010 Tour de France is designed to commemorate the very first Pyrenees stage in 1910, one hundred years ago. The original 326km stage included the same four climbs attacked in the same way. The Tour is not quite as encouraging of failure as it used to be, and this time the stage has been shortened to 200km. This is possibly because in 1910, the stage winner Octave Lapize famously yelled, “Vous êtes des assassins (you are murderers),” specifically naming the founder Henri Desgrange and the stage organizers.
Still, French magazine Le Cycle included all four climbs in their list of the 30 most beautiful climbs in France, and it’s not uncommon for the beautiful stages to be listed among the contenders’ favourite things about the Tour.
It’s hard to tell of this will be the most difficult stage of the Tour – the 17th Stage, which will take place after the second – and last – rest day, is a close contender as it includes a second climb of the treacherous Tourmalet, this time from a reportedly more difficult direction. This stage also does not include a summit finish, but we can still safely expect to see some suffering in the peloton in this historic and exciting stage.
The 16th stage begins in Arreau, from which the first climb, the Col de Peyresourde, is visible. This pass has been included in Tour stages more than 50 times, climbed from the east side usually, as it is this time, serving as a warm-up for the more difficult Aspin and Tourmalet. Cycling Hall of Famers Jean Robic and Federico Bahamontes have climbed this beautiful romanesque pass many times before, which begins at the village of Garin.
Aspin, the second climb, has been in the Tour even more frequently – it is regularly used as a warm-up for the Tourmalet. Sylvere Maes can thank his 1936 Tour victory at least partially on the Aspin, where he dropped close competitor Antonin Magne. In 1950, spectators led a protest here and attacked Gino Bartali, which led to the entire Italian team abandoning the Tour.
The Aubisque holds the distinction of having appeared in the Tour de France more than any other climb, certainly more often than it has been missing from the Tour.
“It’s the most legendary Col in the Pyrénées,” said Eddy Merckx. “I always succeeded here because it was long enough to make my adversaries suffer.”
The Tour de France website has dedicated this stage to Merckx, who won a very similar stage in 1969 with a huge 180km breakaway, where he famously attacked his teammate Van der Bosche to overtake him and take the summit victory. He explained this as a lashing out in anger in disappointment to his teammate’s announcement the day before that he would be leaving the team.
This historic mountain is certainly the second most famous climb in the Pyrénees after Tourmalet. Peppered with long flat sections, and even a descent, the average grade makes the climb sound less daunting than it really is. The list of champions to the summit includes Merckx, Bahamontès, Jalabert, and of course many more.
The long flat stretch following the Col du Soulor, leading to the Aubisque, is the famously sublime cliff amphitheatre road “Cirque du Litor,” aka the circle of death. In 1951, Wim Van Est, the race leader at the time, fell off the cliff in his yellow jersey but managed to suffer no serious injury.
The final summit leaves 60km left to the finish line. This should mimic Stage 9, when the long descent injected the same excitement into the race as a summit finish would.
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