The Orientales Express
The modern Tour de France, indeed modern cycling, has a keen sense of the aesthetic. The Champs-Élysées at dusk, Les Lacets de Montvernier, Mont-St-Michel, even a slightly half-hearted stage départ under the Millau Viaduct, all create the sort of visual feast for which the Tour has an insatiable appetite. Even if their sporting value is limited, such shareable, likeable moments are the driving force behind the massive media coverage that makes Le Tour the behemoth it is.
In that sense it’s obvious why the 2021 race used a particular 23km of the route that Cyclist is about to ride at the Mediterranean end of the French Pyrenees. On Stage 14, after 166 of the day’s 184 kilometres, the pros ascended the Col de Saint-Louis by way of a spiralling road that is known locally as ‘l’Escargot’.
You may have ridden the 270˚ Nus de Sa Corbata on the eternally popular Sa Calobra climb in Mallorca (see p74 if you’re unfamiliar with it); The Snail is similar in that it loops around and under itself, but with an extra 180˚ of twist. You can imagine the giddy excitement in the offices of ASO – and for that matter – when this wondrous piece of road was discovered.
