Sports Poets Society

*Cover image by Daniel Hughes Col d’Izoard: A mountain in the shadows of Tour giants – Rouleur Rouleur reflects on the tales of the Col d'Izoard, the alps fifth highest mountain pass APRILE 05, 2024 WORDS: ANDY MCGRATH This is an edited version of an article originally published in Rouleur magazine, edition 51 (2014). Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme has always wanted to pay homage to the race’s historical kingmakers and heartbreakers, while seeking out fresh challenges. Mission impossible. It can’t be done. Certain places will be sieved out, because something’s got to give when new clashes with old. “The Tour always evolves. Today, the great summits of the Tour are Mont Ventoux, Alpe d’Huez, the Tourmalet and the Galibier . But it is no longer the Izoard, for example. That was the great climb of the 1950s and '60s,” Prudhomme told Bicycling in 2011. Didn’t anyone tell Monsieur Prudhomme to respect his elders? Greatness is a subjective thing. Besides, the To...

Fra i templi sacri del ciclismo, mai l’Izoard – nei 34 precedenti di 103 edizioni - era stato arrivo di tappa al Tour. Lo è stato nella 18esima della quarta Grande Boucle vinta – ufficiosamente, ma vinta – da Chris Froome. Il tappone che chiudeva la due giorni alpina è andato a Warren Barguil , già vincitore a Foix il 14 luglio, che col punteggio doppio ai 2360 di quota ha blindato la maglia a pois di miglior scalatore.  Nei 179 km e mezzo da Briançon al Col dell’Izoard, il Team Sky ha giocato al gatto coi topolini, che hanno preso via via le forme di Lutsenko (gregario di Aru con cui aveva provato l’Izoard in allenamento un mese esatto fa, il 20 giugno), poi Atapuma secondo al traguardo il 20 luglio, festa nazionale dell’Indipendenza colombiana e infine Bardet, andato a sprintare - con scintille - su Froome per i 4” di abbuono del terzo posto. Saltato Fabio Aru che al quarto giorno di bronchite è sceso dal quarto al quinto posto dietro Landa e a 1.55” da Froo...

https://cyclist.com.au/travel/col-dizoard-france-high-point/ At 2,361m, the Izoard is one of the highest cols at the Tour de France and has been the scene of many epic rides in the past. Cyclist tackles a true classic. It is early summer in the French Alps but somewhere along the road from the fortified mountain town of Briançon to the upper flanks of the 2,361m Col d’Izoard we seem to have cycled through a wormhole and ended up at Christmas. Snow-dusted ridges surround us like walls of a winter castle, and in the open bowl beneath them are pine forests, slabs of snow, and a cosy chalet with a sloping roof. Looking down on this solitary mountain refuge – built by Napoleon III in 1858 and miniaturised by its epic surroundings – gives the impression we are cycling inside an enormous snow globe. All it needs is a divine hand to shake us around, and the snow will rise up from the curved slopes of the Izoard into the glass sphere of blue sky above, and sprinkle down in flakes al...