Tour de France 2015 Route stage 20: Modane

Tour de France 2015 Route stage 20: Modane – L’Alpe d’Huez

Saturday, July 25, 2015 – With a bang the Tour de France says goodbye to the mountains! Stage 20 may be short - 110.5 kilometres -, rest assured to fireworks will detonate with a top finish in L'Alpe d'Huez.

Straight from the start the speed will be high as the riders plunge down a descent. In the original road book it would have been a 13.5 kilometres drop, but since the Chambon tunnel is closed after a landslide the intitial climb up the Col du Telegraphe is skipped. Same story for the Col du Galibier. Instead the Col de la Croix de Fer is on the menu. The climb is tackled from another side as in stage 19, still it is a 29 kilometres monster at 5.2%

After a plunge down into the Oisans Valley the rider are back on the original toute in Bourg-d’Oisans. The climb to L’Alpe d’Huez was in the 2013 Tour twice in stage 18. Christophe Riblon was the victor after an exciting cat-and-mouse-game with Tejay van Garderen and Moreno Moser.

To get to Alpe d’Huez, riders are to climb 1.8 kilometres at 8%. The criss-cross ascent to the ski-resort is blessed with 21 hairpins. The first two kilometres and the tenth kilometre are steepest, while the climb flattens out at the top.

Race results/stage report stage 20, Tour de France 2015.