Tour Climbs: The complete guide to every mountain stage on the Tour de France. Chris Sidwells

      This shelf of land high above the Ariège valley is a relatively new climb to the Tour de France, but its severity has made it a favourite with the organisers. Since its first visit in 1998 the race has been back three times. It starts in the pretty village of Les Cabannes, and after a fairly easy first kilometre the climb gets very un-Pyrenean and the gradient remains fairly constant around six percent for the next 10 kilometres.

      Then the climb seems to remember where it is and all of a sudden you come across an absolutely flat stretch of 300 metres, after which the gradient rears up to 10.8 percent for the next kilometre, before slowly easing off to the summit.

      Les Cabannes, like many of the settlements along the bottom of the Ariège valley, owes its development to the minerals that were mined there and processed in local forges, and to the railway, which was established in 1888. In 1929 the railway linked up with Spain through the Puymorens tunnel. Les Cabannes has always been a thriving place and nothing has changed, although much of the economy is based on tourism today.

      The first part of the climb uses regular and well-constructed lacets to gain height, and you get fantastic views between the trees of the Ariège and over one of its tributary valleys, the Aston. The rock faces you can see are limestone, and it is limestone that gives the Ariège area of the Pyrenees its distinctive look. The rest of the Eastern Pyrenees are granite or gneiss, and not so easily eroded into the gorges that you find in the Ariège. To the northeast you might be able to spot the Trimouns quarry, which the biggest talc quarry in Europe

      There is a restaurant, a refuge and a large car park at the top of the climb, where the Quioules stream joins the Aston. The high mountains directly to the south of you are the French border with Andorra.

       WHICH WAY?

      Les Cabannes is 20 kilometres southeast of Foix on the N20. The road to the Plateau de Beille is the D527, which becomes the D522 and it is on your right just as you enter Les Cabannes on the N20. It is clearly signposted.

       Marco Pantani was the first winner on Plateau de Beille in 1998. The Tour has been back three times since.

       Lance Armstrong won twice here, the first time in 2002 and the second in 2004. The Plateau de Beille is a bit like Alpe d’Huez, another climb on which Armstrong excelled and that he liked a lot. There was something about its regularity that suited him. Of the 21 Tour de France stages the American won, eleven were in the mountains but only five were in the Pyrenees.

       Spain’s Alberto Contador won here in 2007. It was his first Tour stage win and it set the seeds for his overall victory in the race at the age of 24, which is young for a Tour de France winner. Contador is in the same team as Armstrong was, which meant his victory was their eighth in nine years.

      Halfway up the climb

      Rear of the 2007 Tour field climb the Plateau © Luc Claessen

      Plateau de Bonascre

      ‘RISING ABOVE THE THERMALS’

       2 STARS

      Length: 7.8 km

      Altitude:

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