From Newsgroup: rec.bicycles.tech
Roger Merriman wrote:
Alpe d'huez was really overcrowded, and realistically did interfere with
some racers, even Pog had to ease off at least once.
They really do need to do some crowd control there or not use it, the
crowds where in the road created a narrow gap, really it should be fenced
off or have more marshals.
I think I saw that the crowd issues are the primary reason that the Tour
goes to Alpe d'huez only on a 4-year cycle.
From what I've seen indicated, it's only the last 4 km at the top that
gets fenced. Lower down, a lot of the road is narrow enough that there
are a lot of spaces that it's nearly impossible to do fencing -- plus
the added costs of installation and removal.
As an aside, something that I did several years ago was to use the
street view of Google Maps to follow the entire length of the climb, all
21 turns. It really helped me to get a perspective on what it all looks
like, and in better context of what gets shown in the TV feeds during
the race.
I haven't done it yet, but I want to try doing that again with some of
the more famous climbs.
Smith
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