July 06, 2024
Years in the making, the Tour heads into an unprecedented stage which contains 14 sections of gravel roads
One of the most anticipated stages in this year’s Tour de France is stage nine on Sunday, a newly anointed gravel stage, hailed as the stage of the chemins blancs, or the white roads. For the Tour de France, it’s a first. But really, this foray into gravel has been years in the making.
“For the past eight years or so, Christian Prudhomme has really wanted us to incorporate more gravel roads,” says Yannick Talabardon, a member of the ASO race direction, who personally oversaw the making of this unique stage. “We started a few years ago with Paris-Tours by adding certain roads in the vineyards and it really helped us reinvent the race. Then in the first Tour de France Femmes we had a big gravel stage, so we have been building towards this day.”
Talabardon proposed the area around Troyes after discovering their wealth of gravel roads while visiting family. “One day I did a ride around the area on my bike and understood just how many gravel roads there were here. That’s when I understood that there was a real potential for a great stage here in this region.”
Yannick Talabardon was instrumental in setting up the Tour’s gravel stage (Photo: James Startt)
The chemin blancs were one of the real attractions to the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift in its first edition back in 2022. But while the stage was a veritable success, the ASO team understood there was room for improvement. “We only did four sections, but some of them were simply too rough for a stage race like the Tour.”
Stage nine’s 199km stage on Sunday will include no less than 32.2km of white roads over 14 sections as it loops around the countryside just east of Troyes. “We’ve divided the stage into two different kinds of sections. The first half of the gravel sections are roads that go through vineyards and the second half are farm roads that go through wheat fields or sunflower fields. Basically, we loop around what is called the Côte de Bar. On one side are wine vineyards that produce champagne, with lots of climbs.”
When it came to designing the specific stage, Talabardon visited the region with Thierry Gouvenou, head race director for the Tour, and the two reconned as many roads as possible in an effort to stitch together what they considered an ideal stage.
“In the early…