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Morzine-Avoriaz
189 km
Sunday 11 July
From the Jura to the Alps… From the start, and on the previous day in particular, the pack has encountered some steep challenges, but this is the first real contact with high mountain peaks. Rarely climbed - twice only - the Ramaz pass sits forty kilometres from the high altitude finish in Avoriaz, which was last visited by the Tour sixteen years ago.
• Stage town for the first time
• Population: 3,000
• Winter / summer holiday resort in Jura (39)
The Faucille mountain pass, which sits above the resort of Les Rousses, was also one of the first passes to be included on the Tour, climbed as far back as 1911. From 1957, the Grand Prix de la Montagne often finished at the top of the climb to Les Rousses. Ottavio Bottecchia, Gino Bartali and Federico Bahamontes are legendary names eternally associated with this climb, scaled for the last time in 2004. One man has conquered the Faucille and the climb to Avoriaz: Lucien Van Impe.
• 17 times a stage town in Morzine
• 6 times a stage site in the resort of Avoriaz
• Population: 3,400
• Town in Haute-Savoie (74)
At the end of the 1970s, Avoriaz, the high-altitude ski resort that is part of the town of Morzine, specialised in hosting hill climb time-trials, in which Lucien Van Impe, the King of the Morzine climb, triumphed twice. Over longer distances Bernard Hinault, in 1979, and Piotr Ugrumov, in 1994, also dominated time-trials here at 1,800 metres altitude. In 1985 Lucho Herrera was the first to reach the “Gateway to the Sun” in a stage similar to the one planned for this year’s riders.
