But First A Word About the Mountain Stages:

Before I put you to sleep with the intricacies of points and scoring, let me first say something about the mountains. It is the climbing stages in the Tour de France that really capture the world’s attention. The GC or overall winner is very often decided in the mountains. He doesn’t necessarily have to win any of the mountain stages, but he must consistently push the pace in the peleton until he forces his closest rivals to "crack," to "explode," to "blow-up," or in other words to "run out of gas" and fall behind him by precious seconds. Or if his rival decides to attack, he must match the rival or lose those same precious seconds. If he can win one or two of these stages in the process, that’s frosting on the cake! Glory on top of Glory!

The mountain stages may be anywhere from 70 to 125 miles long, requiring between three to six hours of steady riding. There may be just one big mountain at the end of the ride, or several killers, one after the other. The most dramatic of these stages have summit-top finishes, where the riders’ legs and lungs and hearts are pushed to the brink of collapse. I am gasping for breath just thinking about it!

Among the legendary mountains is the Alpe d’Huez, a ski resort village about an hour drive by car up an alpine canyon from Grenoble. It sits at 6,100 feet elevation, less than 10 miles from the canyon floor at 2,300 feet. The cyclists arrive at the base of the climb after 3 to 5 hours of riding (much of it up and down other nearby summits), and they then must call upon their last reserves of strength and courage to race to the top through 17 painfully steep switchbacks. Each corner has a plaque honoring a prior winner of a Tour stage on this climb. The average slope is 8%, and the maximum slope is 13%. Trust me, it is steep. There are no level or downhill sections along the way for the riders to catch their breath. Of course, most of the 10 mile climb is overflowing with crazy spectators from all over Europe and the world who have been camping there for days consuming untold quantities of their national brews and/or the fine French wines. It makes for a wild ride!

If you are a biker and want to sample a comparable test of your fitness (without the hazard-duty enhancement of the sloshed spectators), consider riding the Three Kings race sponsored by the City of North Salt Lake (Utah), this coming Saturday, June 16, 2012. http://threekings.nslcity.org/  Here is a punishment of 12.4 miles up three separate climbs totaling nearly 2,800 feet of elevation rise. The highest elevation (5,650 ft) is less than the Alpe d’Huez, but the average elevation will give you comparable oxygen deprivation. And each of the Three Kings has a maximum slope that is steeper than the steepest on the Alpe d’Huez: 14%, 20% and 15%! Prizes for men, women, youngest, oldest, and even the "lantern rouge." (I’ll explain later.) Are you up to the challenge?

Matt Jensen (City Councilman/organizer of Three Kings Race) half-way up the Alpe d'Huez - swtichback No. 10 out of 17.