It may be seem unlikely as we watch the Tour huff and puff its way up the mountain in scorching temperatures, but there is skiing in them there hills.
On the south side (the route the riders are taking this year), look out for Chalet Reynard, 6km from the summit, at 1,435m. A lift pass at its small ski area costs 12€ during the season. It's open on Wednesdays and at weekends:
As may be expected, there is more skiing on the north side, at Mont Serein. It's still tiny, by Alpine standards, with 12km of downhill pistes, and 7km of ski de fond:
This time next year will see the Grand Depart from another fiercely independent-minded part of the world: Yorkshire.
Stage 1 sees the Tour take in the Dales, en route from Leeds to Harrogate. Stage 2 is York-Sheffield, which will be a "mini Liege-Bastogne-Liege" including a fearsome looking climb up Jenkin Road, just before the finish.
Stage 3 sees the tour leave Cambridge for the capital. Boris will be no doubt be seen beaming as the peloton passes the Olympic site and then all the central London landmarks.
Here, in no particular order, are ten videos all about Les Arcs and its environs. 1. The Beginning of the End for Miguel Indurain Tour de France, 1996. "Big Mig" has a jour sans on the road to Les Arcs. Chris Boardman finds it a tad tricky too. More here..
2. Top Gear aux Arcs
Watch Hammond et al descend from Arc 1950 to Villaroger. By car. Racing against the locals. On skis.
3. Skiing Today
Courtesy of my daughter.
4. Ski Joering:
Les Arcs seems to be one of the few places to practice this, er, unique activity.
5. Tour de France 2009
Sadly, they stopped in Bourg St Maurice rather than making the climb up to Les Arcs. And the winner of the stage was later tested positive. More here.
6. The 7e BCA
The Chasseurs Alpins have now left Bourg St Maurice - a big event, and one which will take some adapting to on a whole range of levels.
7. Mountain Biking on the Cachette
The red run above 1600 morphs into a notable VTT descente in summmer:
8. Panorama
This starts rather higher up, and gives a wonderful overview of Les Arcs' terrain during the summer.
9. Welcome to Paradise
It's hard to love the official Paradiski branding but hey ho:
10. The "LA Session"
I think the days of these February meetings have now gone, but they were quite something...
Tignes isn't really steeped in Tour history. It's only been there once in fact, but the 2007 tour did stay on for a rest day when it did come to town. The stage was won by the dastardly Rasmussen, who was later removed from the Tour by his Rabobank team - Wikipedia summary, including the Tour in London, can be found here.
Here's the Stage from another angle - a nice behind-the-scenes video, including the ridiculous-ness that is the publicity caravan, about 3 minutes in.
Tignes is a frequent base for altitude training of French sports teams. Stade Francais are regular visitors, for example. However the most notable recent guests were perhaps the French football team, who spent some "quality time" together in May 2010, before their disastrous South African adventure. Look out for Franck Ribery, who looks particularly reluctant as the happy campers take to the chairlift with their snowshoeing kit in tow.
Given its fame, it's perhaps surprising that the Manchester United of skiing has only hosted two Tour arrivals, in 1963 (below) and in 1996, the day after Indurain's nightmare on the way to Les Arcs.
Here's some (silent) video of the 1963 stage, including the Col de l'Iseran at 5'40". The stage was won by Spaniard Fernando Mazaneque.
1996 saw a relatively unusual mountain time trial stage, on what is (by Alpine standards) the pretty dull road between Bourg St Maurice and Val d'Isere.
The next day brought snow, which meant the planned epic stage over the Iseran and Galibier to Sestriere had to be shortened. Riis won and went on to win the Tour - overview here. Details of Riis's later confession to having taken drugs here.
The famous La Plagne logo. More on the history of the resort (and the evolution of the logo) here.
La Plagne has a more illustrious Tour de France history than Les Arcs. It's been a stage finish four times, and at least two of those finishes are among the recent classics. More here.
Here's Laurent Fignon, winning in yellow, and on the way to victory in 1984.
"It's Stephen Roche"! The famous comeback in 1987 (at 2 minutes in), followed by his collapse just after the finish line.
Alex Zulle wins in 1995 on the way to 2nd place. This stage was one of 7 back-to-back mountain stages....
And Michael Boogerd was allowed the freedom to escape and win in 2002. This stage finished 100m lower than the previous three:
According to www.salite.ch, the 21.4km climb from Aime, at 6.6.% gradient, with 1400m of climbing, has a difficulty rating of "130" which puts it in the same category as Alpe d'Huez....
The Tour de France stage to Bourg St Maurice lacked the drama of the 1996 visit to Les Arcs (scene of Indurain's downfall - more here.
What could be better - a start in Switzerland, through Italy, down into Bourg St Maurice, via the Grand and Petit St Bernard passes, before a final climb up to Arc 1800.
Except the decision was taken for the riders to finish down in the valley in Bourg St Maurice - so that the suspense could continue right until the final Saturday and the climb of Mont Ventoux. Here's the Wikipedia account of the 2009 Tour.
In the event, the Ventoux stage proved to be a bit of a let-down, and the stage to Bourg is little remembered. Or at least remembered for the wrong things. The winner of the stage, Miguel Astarloza, later tested positive for drugs, and the stage was awarded to Sandy Casar.
Here are the riders on the descent to Bourg St Maurice.
The finish line was in the road leading from the SNCF roundabout to the Funiculaire:
The following day the riders left from Bourg St Maurice. Here they are on the very lower slopes of the Cormet du Roseland.
Lance Armstrong and co stayed - of course - in Arc 1950. The Euskatel Euskadi team, on the other hand, stayed in the more modest environs of Arc 1800. As did The Tour Doctor:
More on cycling in Les Arcs this summer here. If you think the 1st category climb from Bourg St Maurice is too easy, go down to Landry, take the (much harder) climb to Peisey and up to Arc 1800 on the summer road, and then continue to Arc 2000. The final climb from the Comborciere lift at 1800m to Arc 2000 (actually at 2100m) is a tough one....
The 1996 Tour de France can hardly go down as the greatest in history, given that the winner Bjarne Riis admitted taking drugs during the tour, with most of the other riders also implicated - see wikipedia account for some of the background.
Aside from this depressing backdrop, it is notable for two reasons: the first inclusion of the climb to Les Arcs, and the beginning of the end for Miguel Indurain. Here's the route, which included the Chambery to Les Arcs stage, via Col de la Madeleine and the Cormet de Roselend:
Other features of the 1996 Tour include:
Lance Armstrong having to give up at Aix-les-Bains - the start of his fight against cancer.
Snow stopping the racing on the Cols de l'Iseran and Galibier
Chris Boardman in his heyday, albeit not on the Les Arcs stage.
The stage to Les Arcs was also notable for seeing yellow jersey holder Stephane Heulot abandon on the Cormet de Roseland.
On the climb itself, we see Indurain dropped just before the Arc 1600 roundabout, and (in contravention of the rules) taking a drink. Was he wearing too much, speculate the commentators. Have a look at around 2:45 for the moment Indurain cracks, with Luc Leblanc going on to win the stage.
Gary Imlach was sent to Indurain's hotel (the Grand Hotel Paradiso) in Arc 1800 to find out more. "I wasn't suffering but I didn't have the rhythm or strength to do it...."
It wasn't entirely the end of the road for Indurain - the next day he put in a very good performance in the Bourg St Maurice - Val d'Isere time trail. But it was Les Arcs which marked the beginning of the end for "Big Mig". It isn't the hardest climb in the world, but it is long - 15km. Arguably the 2009 Tour would have been much more interesting if the organisers hadn't wimped out of taking the riders up to Arc 1800, rather than finishing in Bourg-St-Maurice.....
