Tour Climbs: The complete guide to every mountain stage on the Tour de France. Chris Sidwells

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      They have been part of the Tour almost since it started. The mountains of France have been the Tour’s theatre, where its dramas, its successes, failures and tragedies have been played out.

      Anyone with designs on winning the race has to master the mountains, has to be able to soar upwards in defiance of gravity. To see some of the great climbers of this race is to witness a combination of brute force and ballet. Such men appear to have wings on their feet as they dance effortlessly upwards.

      Of course it’s not like that at all. It takes years of hard work and application, natural talent, supreme physical fitness and sometimes shear bravery to take on these giant climbs at race pace.

      But the bike is a truly beautiful machine. While the racers of this world will use theirs to force their way up the gradients, set records, break personal bests and punish the opposition, others prefer to shift down a gear and take their time.

      The mountains belong to both, to all of us really. If you enjoy cycling you can enjoy climbing the mountains of the Tour de France in your own way, and what a lot there is waiting for you.

      From the intimacy of the Vosges, through the dark and rugged Massif Central, to the unpredictable Pyrenees and the off-the-scale splendour of the Alps, all of the French mountains are accessible to cyclists. A bit of training, a bit of application, a bit of know how, a sound bike and the mountains are yours for ever. Enjoy!

      The mountains of the Tour de France

      ‘HOW TO RIDE THEM’

      Climb every mountain, or so the song goes. And with the right equipment, preparation, a bit of technique and the correct mental approach you can do just that. You can climb every mountain of the Tour de France.

      The mountains are a huge challenge in a race, they separate the champions from the very best in the sport, but any averagely fit person who has done a bit of training can get to the top of them, too. Slower yes, much slower in many cases, but that’s not the point. Mountain climbs are a personal challenge and all that matters is that you enjoy your journey to the top.

      So what is needed to take on the mountains of the Tour de France? The first answer is obviously a bike. But just any bike? Well, basically yes. The pros in the Tour de France ride on road race bikes made from the latest space-age materials at a cost of thousands of pounds a piece, but you can climb the Tour de France mountains on a road bike, a mountain bike or a hybrid bike. The latter being a bike with some of the features of both road and mountain bikes. All these bikes are suitable for climbing mountains, although you might want to swap some of the equipment on yours to make life easier when you do.

      Road bikes

      These are what are classically called race bikes. They have dropped handlebars, thin tyres and multiple gears. Entry level models costs about £400 and the amount you pay, as with most things in life, reflects the quality and sophistication of the machine. However, you don’t have to break the bank to buy a good bike. What you are looking for in a road bike suitable for climbing mountains are lightness and gear ratios low enough to allow you to pedal up the climbs in a seated position, and at a reasonably high cadence.

      This is the crux of climbing up mountains. You can muscle your way up a short hill by climbing out of the saddle to put more power into the pedals, but you can’t climb the mountains of the Tour de France like that. Not even the pros can. The Tour de France climbs are long, and sometimes they are long and steep. You have to take your time with them. You have to gear down and ride within yourself.

      There are two options that give you the low gear ratios you need for climbing Tour de France mountains: triple or compact chainsets. Chainsets are the part of a bike’s drive train that the pedals are attached to. Gear ratios are determined by the size of the chainring on a chainset and the size of the teethed sprockets on the rear wheel. Small chainrings and large sprockets give you low gears, so on a triple chainset there is an extra small chainring, and on compact chainsets both chainrings are smaller than standard.