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Stage 7: Hagetmau – Bordeaux, 175.1k
The single easiest stage of the race.Map and profile
Start
The overnight transfer has taken the riders out of the Pyrenees, past Pau and into the small town of Hagetmau. It developed around the now mostly demolished Abbey of Saint Girons, which was supposedly established under Charlemagne but probably dates back to the 11th century. In the mid-19th century, the government of Napoleon III initiated the development of plantations in the Landes, creating the largest man-made forest in Europe. The huge increase in the availability of timber led to the development of the chair manufacturing industry in Hagetmau, which is located just south of the forest. This industry has seen decline in more recent decades, but the population has remained stable regardless. The town’s most famous son, conspicuously absent from the heritage section on the Tour site, is Henri Lefebvre, one of the most influential Marxist scholars of the 20th century (Critique of Everyday Life, The Right to the City, The Production of Space). This will be Hagetmau’s first time hosting the Tour.
We are very much in the part of France that does bullfighting (by Jibi44 at Wikimedia Commons)
The route
Not too much to say about this one. It’s mostly a straight shot north in the direction of Bordeaux. Early on, the race passes through Mont-de-Marsan, the largest town in the area. It is inextricably linked to cycling via Luis Ocaña, whose family emigrated to the region when he was aged 12. Ocaña took up the sport in Mont-de-Marsan, setting the scene for a career that took him to Tour and Vuelta glory plus a famous rivalry with Merckx. His life had often been troubled as a cyclist (a proper writeup really would require several pages at a minimum, hence this bare-bones version), something that became much worse after retirement. Severely ill, he committed suicide in 1994, dying in the Mont-de-Marsan hospital aged just 48.
On the other side of town, the riders enter the forest, which means monotonous scenery and few towns. Right before the edge of the Landes, there is the intermediate sprint, in Landiras. This is quite frankly a needlessly dangerous spot to have one, as the run-in is an extended downhill false flat that ends mere hectometres from the line.
After leaving the woods, the peloton will cross the Garonne at Cadillac-sur-Garonne. For unclear reasons (various versions of the story exist), Antoine Laumet de Lamothe-Cadillac chose to append the name of the town to his surname. He would go on to found Detroit, which explains how a small French town shares its name with one of the most famous luxury cars. It is here that the route joins that of the 2023 stage into Bordeaux, and the remainder of the route is almost identical to that year’s version. This includes the token KOM, Côte de Béguey. The mountain point is handed out after about 1.4k of the profile below, which they race in full.
The route soon returns to the river to make its way into Bordeaux. The only deviation from the 2023 route is that we recross the Garonne one (newly-constructed) bridge upstream. The chicane just after 5k to go is on the tight side, the corner onto the bridge is fine. The section after that has been overhauled in recent years (and construction is still ongoing in places), which makes it hard for me to establish what the route is exactly – the interactive map is no help, because it straight up doesn’t adhere to the current road layout, and the map in the roadbook (as below) is no help either because it doesn’t highlight any potential hazards when those definitely exist.
To leave the bridge, there are two options. Either the route sticks to the flow of traffic, which means it takes a one-lane entrance ramp onto the dual carriageway following the river, or it takes the two-lane entrance ramp against the flow of traffic, then immediately makes a slight chicane to pass through the brief section where bollards separate the two halves of the road. The next 1.7 kilometres are easy, then the route needs to pass another bridge. To do so, the route enters a slip road, which on satellite maps and Streetview is briefly single-lane at the start (images have not been updated since last year, so that might have changed given that construction is ongoing). What is definitely the case is that the slip lane then goes through a slightly claustrophobic underpass, constantly turning left down and up some noticeable gradients, then makes a right-hander that’s a lot more noticeable than it looks on the map back onto the ‘normal’ road. The remaining 1.9 kilometres are the same as in 2023. All in all, the finish is definitely not as straightforward as it looks at first glance.
Finish
Founded by the Gauls, Bordeaux was still a young town when the Romans conquered Aquitaine in 56 BC. The city, then known as Burdigala, quickly developed into one of the main ports on Rome’s Atlantic coast. The Romans also introduced viticulture to the city, a key development considering how famous the region’s wines were to become. In 70, the provincial capital of Aquitaine was moved here. As a centre of both trade and administration, Bordeaux was one of the foremost cities in what is now France, peaking at around 20000 inhabitants. As with almost every Roman city, the tumult of the third century marked the start of its decline, and after a pretty severe sacking by the Visigoths in 414 it fell behind especially Toulouse and Poitiers for a while.
As the 6th century turned to the 7th, the Franks conquered most of southern France, marking the first time that Bordeaux was subject to rule from Paris. However, given the distance, maintaining control required a strong central authority in the capital, something that was far from a given in the Middle Ages. The power of the ruling Merovingian dynasty waned quickly, and by the late 7th century the kings were mere figureheads, with the so-called mayors of the palace wielding power. In this environment, the Duchy of Aquitaine, in personal union with the Duchy of Gascony (in which Bordeaux was located) gradually became an independent state. However, the Arab invasion of the early 8th century forced the dukes to turn to the Franks, now de facto ruled by mayor of the palace Charles Martel, for help. This marked a turning point, and after Charles Martel’s son Pepin the Short had deposed the last Merovingian king and established the Carolingian dynasty, Aquitaine lost its remaining independence during the early rule of Charlemagne in 769. The subsequent reorganization of Aquitaine and Gascony led to Bordeaux becoming the seat of a county.
Over the course of the 9th century, Carolingian power went into decline, in significant part due to the kings’ inability to deal with the Viking invasions. The location of Bordeaux was especially vulnerable, and it was sacked on multiple occasions. With the Carolingians failing to stamp their authority in the southwest, both Aquitaine and Gascony gradually regained effective independence, although both would continue to suffer from Viking raids for quite some time. During this period, Gascony had strong ties to the Basque Country, and was briefly a vassal state of the Kingdom of Navarre. In 1053, Aquitaine conquered Gascony, marking the end of the Basque connection.
In 1137, the ruling House of Poitiers died out in the male line, and the French king Louis VII (who effectively only ruled a kingdom of similar size to Aquitaine) married his heir Eleanor. It was a major political coup, but after fifteen years of marriage failed to produce a male heir (unlike in Aquitaine, daughters could not inherit the French throne), the marriage was annulled. Eleanor then immediately married Louis’ great rival, the duke of Normandy, Henry. At the time, Henry was involved in a long-running civil war for the throne of England, which he gained in 1154. With that, the newly-crowned King Henry II ruled what historians have dubbed the Angevin Empire, covering England and the western half of France, where they were vassals in name but rulers in practice. Needless to say, Louis was pissed, and this is where the enmity between the English and French kings really ramps up. And just as an added insult, Eleanor did, in fact, prove capable of giving birth to boys during her second marriage.
Angevin rule proved fruitful for Bordeaux, which grew significantly during the next centuries in significant part because trade with England increased dramatically. In the early 13th century, the French kings reclaimed most of the Angevin possessions in France, with only southern and central Aquitaine holding out. Poitiers was one of the cities that did fall to France, and Bordeaux became the centre of the remaining part of the duchy. Aquitaine remained an important bone of contention between the English and French kings, and this was one of the key reasons for the outbreak of the Hundred Years’ War in 1337. Discussing this war in its entirety is too much of a tangent even for me, but it inevitably helped shape Bordeaux’ history. As the English kings usually granted Bordeaux significant autonomy, the city was usually happy to support its long-standing overlords, and France would only seize it after winning the war in 1453. With that, Bordeaux lost most of its autonomy and trade with England withered, causing a period of decline. Friction was the norm during the next centuries, with numerous revolts.
The turning point came when France started to establish a colonial empire. Bordeaux was located very favourably for transatlantic trade, and without wanting to disregard the human implications of its involvement in slave trade, this ushered in a golden age for the city. By the 18th century, Bordeaux was the busiest port in the country and was going through a period of large-scale urban development. This period was brought to an end by the French Revolution. On the one hand, this was because it triggered the Haitian Revolution (which really does not get anywhere near the attention it deserves in the West), probably the most significant slave rebellion in world history, which resulted in the independence of what had been France’s most lucrative colony. On the other hand, the ensuing French Revolutionary Wars massively disrupted trade in general during the following decades. The port rebounded significantly, but would never reach its former glories and has declined badly since the 20th century when the tidal, somewhat shallow Gironde proved unfavourable for the ever-larger ships.
Despite the loss of its status as a major port, Bordeaux never relinquished its position as one of France’s most important cities (the metropolitan area is the country’s sixth-largest today). Because of the great distance to Germany, it served as the temporary capital in 1870-71 during the Franco-Prussian War and then in 1914 and 1940 during both World Wars. From the late 19th century onwards and especially in the postwar period, its economy shifted towards industrialisation, with the aeronautic industry remaining of great importance to this day. This was made possible in part thanks to the reestablishment of its university in 1896 (originally founded under English rule, but abolished during the French Revolution), which is among the largest in the country. And of course, there is and has always been its wine, which is also a key driver of tourism. In recent decades, much attention has been given to urban renewal, notably including the reintroduction of a tram network, which opened in 2003 and is now the second-longest in France at 82 kilometres. In cycling, the city is notable as the joint second-most visited city in the history of the Tour (together with Pau), with the most recent visit being in 2023 (a sprint won by Jasper Philipsen) following a 13-year layoff.
(picture by Zairon at Wikimedia Commons)
What to expect?
As the flattest stage of the race in an area that is not suitable for echelons, this is destined to be a snoozefest.
