Verbier (Part I) Le Tour Preview

I am a huge Tour de France fan. As fate would have it, the Tour is coming to Switzerland for 3 days and there was no way I was not going to see this. Stage 15 of the race ends at a ski resort reasonably close to Lausanne in the town of Verbier. So yesterday, Therese and I took a ride up to check things out.....see what parking options we might have.....good vantage points, etc.

After scoping out the town for a bit, we found the information center. #1 Travel Tip: EVERYWHERE in Europe, every city, every town you name it, there is an Information Center - marked by a blue sign with an "i" in it. This is the first thing to look for when you arrive. They have all the info you will ever need.....restaurants, hotels, tours, you name it. And they always speak English. So we learned exactly where the finishing line was going to be and where the end-of-day ceremonies were to be held, etc. In the Tour, there are special jerseys worn by the leaders of each of the various categories of competition in the Tour de France.....there are actually many different competitive categories. Green jersey goes to the best sprinter, polka dot to the best climber, white jersey to the best rookie, and of course the maillot jaune - yellow jersey - to the overall leader. The preparations for this race are immense. The tour traverses many small towns in several countries in Europe each year, and for each this is a very big deal. It brings in lots of money with all the tourists and of course the excitement is high. Every year the tour visits a couple of countries outside of France....Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Monaco, last year they started in London.....even though the majority of the race obviously takes place in France. So the towns go all out to be good hosts for this epic event. This year's tour is shaping up to be a real showdown.....mainly within one team.....Astana.....which has two great riders, Lance (of course) and Alberto Contador. My money is on Contador. He won two years ago, would have won last year but Astana was not invited to participate. He is the most explosive climber by far and he deserves to be the team leader. Lance kind of hosed that up by coming out of retirement. We'll see.
As you can see from the pictures, the views from the top of the mountain here are spectacular.


The race will finish with what's know as a Category I climb.....the last 8.5 kilometers are severely uphill with several switchbacks (this is one of them) and this will make for an exciting finish as the climb stages usually bring separation to the peloton (group of riders together) and allows the good climbers to gain precious seconds or minutes versus their competitors. The tour is typically won by the rider who is the best combination of time trialist and climber. A straight uphill finish means that the climbers have the opportunity to gain this important advantage uphill without having to deal with any flat or downhill portions where the peloton can regroup and their competitors actually recover lost time from the mountains.









What we learned from the young lady in the information center was that there was NO WAY we could drive up here next weekend. On top of the tour, there is a music festival in Verbier at the same time. The town is completely booked (there are thousands of rooms in lodges here) and the highway up the hill will close at 5 am. She recommended that we go to another town down the hill called Le Chable where we can take a tram up to Verbier. So we scoped out the tram and there's a huge parking lot and we won't have to deal with road closures, etc. So that's the plan. First tram at 6 am. Race finish estimated at 5 pm. Pack a lunch, some wine, something to sit on and get ready for craziness....the town will be packed and people will be partying. Stay tuned.