Hello world! Today, then, the second-longest stage of this year’s tour at 156.5km, and the first in the hills, with four categorised climbs and about 2,500m of elevation gain, with the steepest, longest and hardest section coming in the first 25km. By way of bonus the forecast is both hot (33-35C) and with a chance of rain, particularly in those tough early stages heading north out of Geneva.
The day ends in Poligny, and if the name of that town rings a bell that’s probably (well, there’s a slight chance that it’s) because you read about it in April, when it featured in the Guardian’s list of fun and fabulous reasons to visit France this year. Nothing to do with cycling – our reasoning was entirely cheese-related, Poligny being home to La Maison du Comté: not just somewhere to learn about a marvellous cheese, but also one of the finalists for the 10th French National Wood Construction Award in 2021!
(It didn’t win, because the Halle des Fenottes in Ancy-Dornot, despite basically just being a glorified roof on legs, was better. It is, to be fair, a fabulous roof)
Important fact: the average wheel of Comte, at 75cm in diameter, is 128mm, or about 1.2 times, bigger than the average wheel of a road race bicycle. According to Cycling Weekly “most wheel brands these days can hit 1,300g or lower in a 50mm-deep wheelset”, which makes the average single wheel of Comte 30.8 times heavier. You would, to summarise, not want to cycle up a mountain using wheels of Comte.
