Paris (AFP)

The Tour de France 2020, which will be presented Tuesday in Paris, will arrive next July at the Loze Pass, an unprecedented and very spectacular climb designed for the use of bicycles, above the resort of Méribel (Savoie).

"This is a greenway, closed to the circulation of motor vehicles, except those delegated people on the ski area," said the mayor of Méribel-les Allues, Thierry Monin. "It serves the summer serving the ski lifts, the winter is a ski slope.It is only a mix of existing roads, there was no trench in the mountains.

Great novelty of the next Tour, the narrow ribbon of bitumen marries the asperities of the ground on the last 7 kilometers. Like a giant toboggan on a roller coaster, it multiplies the ruptures of slope, which makes little significant its average slope however very high.

"We created this greenway for cyclo-tourists, to have an affair with Courchevel and to develop the practice of electric-assisted bicycles in the summer," says the mayor. "It was proposed to the Tour de France which is the best promotions for us".

- The Tour de l'Avenir test -

In August, the young runners of the Tour de l'Avenir took a life-size test. "The result was conclusive", told AFP the organizer of this race reference in the category of under 23 years, Philippe Colliou.

Bernard Hinault, the five-time winner of the Tour in the 1970s and 1080s, called himself the director of the Tour to advise him to go on site. Christian Prudhomme said to have been "subjugated" by the ascent and setting, where the gaze carries the neighboring peaks of the Vanoise to Mont Blanc.

Thierry Gouvenou, the race director, also went on the scene, to appreciate the change represented by this rise of a new type.

"There is nothing regular, he believes, there is never the same slope, we go from the dish to 20%, then to 10 %.It is necessary all the time change of pace, it do not like the riders. "

"I can not find a comparable place, it's a unique road in France," he adds. "We are at more than 2000 meters of altitude, we will climb to 2304 meters.When we know the effects of altitude on the organisms, it will be the most complicated arrival to manage for the runners, the arrival-queen of the Tour ".

Beyond next summer, the mayor of Meribel is imagining a sequel to develop summer tourism in the area of ​​the Three Valleys: "We hope to attract the Tour de France other times ... if this day is convincing for everyone. "

© 2019 AFP