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

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      Elbows out, shoulders relaxed and breathe deeply © Luc Claessen

      Do a more detailed check whenever you clean your bike, which is something you should do regularly anyway. You must also carry out a regular service on your bike. There are many good bike maintenance books available to help you, but most bike shops will look after your bike if you don’t want to do it yourself.

      Before a ride check that your tyres are pumped up to the recommendations that are usually printed on the tyre. Make sure anything you have fastened onto the bike, like a drinking bottle, a bag or a tyre inflator is safe. And always have another shift through all your gears while riding on the flat somewhere before you start to climb. If you can’t get bottom gear the whole experience might be ruined.

      Physical preparation

      Climbing some of the easier Tour de France mountains is within the scope of almost any reasonably fit and healthy person, given a bike that is in good condition, is fitted with low enough gears, and provided the rider takes his or her time. However, some of the bigger climbs, the most famous ones in fact, do require some physical training. And in any case, the fitter you are the more enjoyable the whole experience will be.

      Without trying to state the obvious, the best way to get fit for cycling is to ride your bike regularly, but that doesn’t mean that other physical exercise is of no use. One of the biggest factors that will impact how quickly you can ride a bike uphill is your body weight, or more particularly your power to weight ratio.

      There is no doubt that being active helps to keep your weight down, so any activity is good activity as far as this is concerned. Linked with a varied diet of good wholesome food, and perhaps a little restraint with regard to eating the classic weight-gaining foods like cakes and chocolate, plenty of varied physical activity is a good foundation on which to build some specific cycling fitness.

      If possible you should add some form of resistance training to your varied programme, concentrating on your leg muscles. This helps to build up the power side of the power to weight equation. Then if you include three or more bike-riding sessions a week for about two months before tackling the mountain climbs, you should be ready. The bike sessions don’t all have to be on the road, although at least one should be. You can use a gym fitness bike or put your own bike on a turbo trainer and ride indoors.

      Once you are riding regularly you should start to seek out some hills in your neighbourhood. The longer these are the more benefit they will have on your ability to master Tour de France mountains. You can also simulate long climbs on indoor bikes by upping the resistance on the machine you are using.

      Whatever way you choose to begin your specific mountain climbing preparation, try to ride all the uphill parts on your routes by sitting on your saddle and spinning your legs in a low gear. Concentrate on relaxing your upper body and breathing deeply and rhythmically. Occasionally you should ride a hill in a little higher gear, both in the seated position and out of the saddle, to help build up some functional muscular strength. And there is nothing wrong with riding up a hill, turning around carefully at the top, descending and doing it again.

      All the advice in the last paragraph comes from the man who many recognise as the best mountain racer ever, Lucien Van Impe of Belgium. He says; “I spent weeks before every Tour de France learning to spin my legs quickly on the climbs. I would try to match my breathing with the rhythm of my legs. When I was a pro rider I practised in the Pyrenees, but when I was a young amateur I trained near where I live in the north of Belgium. There are no mountains there, so I would ride up and down the same hill maybe ten times.”