- Sep 20, 2017
- 11,748
- 22,137
- 28,180
Somehow, nobody had put up the thread yet...
From my analysis thread:
From my analysis thread:
Stage 2: Lauwin-Planque – Boulogne-sur-Mer (209.1k)
Rather depressingly, this is the longest stage of the Tour (in fact, it is one of only three stages to crack the 185 kilometre mark). Rather excitingly, the finale is the best we’ve seen in a Tour hilly stage for quite some time.
Map and profile
Start
One thing you notice when doing these writeups is that the Tour tends to have nondescript stage towns more often than the Giro, and this edition didn’t take very long to provide me with an example. At 1600 inhabitants, Lauwin-Planque might well be the smallest GT stage host I’ve ever seen in such a densely populated area. It is a suburb of Douai, right in the middle of coal country, and was annexed by France at the same time as Lille. Lauwin-Planque itself has no mining history to speak of, instead being mostly associated with the huge Amazon logistics centre that covers about a third of the municipality.
I decided Amazon wasn’t worthy of being featured more strongly. (picture by Jérémy-Günther-Heinz Jähnick at Wikimedia Commons)
The route
The most direct route to Boulogne-sur-Mer would involve going through Lens again, but ASO have elected to refrain from retracing their footsteps… for now. This means that, after a neutralisation through Douai, the riders take a more southerly route through Arras. We are just south of Notre-Dame-de-Lorette here, and so it should come as no surprise that here, too, death and destruction occurred on a disastrous scale during the First World War. It is a chilling thought that there were many days in that war that claimed more lives on their own than the entirety of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. Why am I using that as a comparison, you ask? It’s because Arras is perhaps most famous as the birthplace of by far the best known of its architects, Maximilien Robespierre.
Arras also gives its name to the Artesian hills, which much of the first half of the stage is spent traversing. And with these hills giving way seamlessly to those of the Boulonnais, that makes for a menu consisting mainly of rolling roads. For the first 90 kilometres, until the village of Auchy-lès-Hesdin, they’ve gone with a pretty easy route, but from there on out things start going up and down a lot more. As there are profiles for almost every road in this part of France, this is going to be a pretty extensive route breakdown. Because let’s face it, the first of this string of hills – Côte de Wamin – is not exactly hard.
However, the climb it backs into is a fair bit trickier. Côte de Cavron-Saint-Martin is certainly worth its cat. 4 status.
(profile by Jean-Marie Podvin, reuploaded to Imgur because I couldn’t get it to work otherwise)
The only flats in this section of the stage are mostly atop the hills, because it’s usually down into the valley and then immediately back out the other side. Both hold true for the next hill, Haut de Lebiez.
Next up is Côte de Lebiez. This is the kind of climb from which you can tell how many times ASO want to hand out mountain points on a stage: clearly, the answer is not many.
Another such example is the Côte d’Embry
After a plateau section, the hills recommence with the little wall that is the
Côte d’Hucqueliers.
The next climb, Côte de L’Hotel Dieu, is another stingy one.
The final climb in this zone, Mont Fayel, probably should have been categorized even with ASO in a niggardly mood.
With that, the tricky terrain is over for a while, and so everyone can focus on the intermediate sprint in Énocq.
Things slowly start to ramp up again with the Mont Voyenne.
This is followed by the Côte de Niembourg.
And then, it’s time to get serious. Côte du Haut Pichot is the only climb here that was also used in the 2012 stage into Boulogne-sur-Mer (where they called it Côte de Mont Violette), in fact the two finales otherwise share barely a lick of tarmac. This is the right call on both counts – Haut Pichot is one of the hardest hills in the wider region, and the 2012 finale (while not bad at all) was otherwise far from the best route they could have taken. It is the profile below from the marked intersection onwards, so 1.0k at 10.7%.
Finish
Starting with the profile, because it gives a good overview of the finale.
My one gripe with the route is that the 20 kilometres after Haut Pichot are too easy, but thankfully the final 10 kilometres are almost perfect. We start by heading up the Côte de Saint-Étienne-au-Mont, the other candidate for the hardest climb in the part of France between the Ardennes and the coast. There is an even steeper way up here which is too narrow for the Tour, thankfully the route they take instead is still really difficult.
There is zero respite after the climb: the briefest of plateaus, then a quick descent that ends a few metres from the turn onto the final KOM, Côte d’Outreau. It’s unusually steep for being a cat. 4.
Most of the remaining 5.3 kilometres are spent traversing a low-gradient downhill with a lot of road furniture. There is then a grand total of one kilometre to regroup (if that’s even still possible) before the drag up to the line. The finish is right outside the city walls, with a sweeping curve that ends with maybe 100 metres (if even that) to go. It corresponds to the first 1.2 kilometres of the profile below, with that final kilometre averaging 5.1%.
Boulogne-sur-Mer is one of the oldest cities in northern France, dating back probably to Celtic times but rising to prominence after the Romans made it their main port for traffic to Britain after the conquest of the latter in the first century AD. The most notable piece of architecture from this time, a lighthouse estimated to have been between 40 and 65 metres tall, sadly became a victim of coastal erosion in the 17th century. In the Middle Ages, it became the seat of a county. The ruling family produced Godfrey and Baldwin of Bouillon, who around 1100 served as the first two kings of the crusader state in Jerusalem after the First Crusade. Also dating back to this period are the cathedral, the castle and the fortifications. Otherwise its political history is similar to that of Flanders in the second half of the Middle Ages, likewise becoming part of the Burgundian domains. However, when those were partitioned, Boulogne was the northernmost of the territories to be handed over to France, and so it semi-permanently entered the Kingdom almost two centuries before our previous stage hosts.
French control would be interrupted twice in the remainder of Boulogne’s history. The latter was of course during the Second World War, the former came in the 16th century during one of the many occasions when Scotland and England were at war with France supporting the former. At the peace treaty, France wound up buying the city back from the English. Gradually, trade started to move to other ports and Boulogne became more and more dependent on fishing and smuggling. In the 19th century, Boulogne’s fortunes reversed thanks to the advent of tourism, its location as the gateway to the famous cliff coast (which starts on the outskirts of the city) making it particularly popular.
Boulogne was spared of the horrors of the First World War, but like so many cities on the North Sea, it was badly damaged during the Second World War. Although the old town centre survived the bombings mostly intact, not much else did. After a period of rapid redevelopment, the last few decades have been difficult for the region, with trade shifting elsewhere after the opening of the Channel Tunnel and deindustrialisation making matters worse. Although fisheries and tourism (including the largest aquarium in Europe since the 1990s) remain key pillars, they have not been able to make up the shortfall and today, there are few regions in France with more economically difficult situations than the Boulonnais.
In terms of sports, this will be the fifth time the Tour has had a stage here, the most recent instance being that 2012 stage I mentioned earlier. It also hosted the national championships in 2011, an edition most notable for Jeannie Longo taking the final win of her career at a sprightly 52 in the time-trial. Sports are also the terrain of the city’s most famous son, Bayern Munich legend (and underage prostitute solicitor) Franck Ribéry. Boulogne is also the place of death of José de San Martin, the legendary general of the armies that liberated half of South America from Spanish colonial rule.
At the bottom of the climb to the finish (picture by Roehrensee at Wikimedia Commons)
What to expect?
By the numbers, the final two KOMs plus the uphill finish are incredibly similar to the finale of the 2016 edition of Liège. In the 2025 peloton, it feels like less of a puncheur day with a bit of GC action, and more like a GC day with some puncheurs in the mix.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram