Who should I contact with Tour de France road closure query?

christiandransfield

Hey everyone,

I've organised a charity Tour de France trip, which includes spectating the pros on the Grenoble to Risoul, via the Col du Lautaret and Col d'Izoard. I'm thinking of booking a hotel in Valloire (other side of the Galibier from Col du Lautaret), then heading up in our van the morning of the stage to Col du Lautaret, then freewheeling on bikes down to a nice spot to watch them. I've planned this, as I'm assuming that the stage route will be closed, so wouldn't be able to any further than the Col du Lautaret in the van. However, does anyone know if all roads in the area, i.e. the road from Lautaret to Valloire (not part of the stage, but shooting off from stage route road), will be closed, or whether it's solely the stage route roads?

Also, does anyone have any advice on who I could contact in the area with this question?

Any advice would be much appreciated!

knedlicky

Overall I don’t think you’ll have a problem getting from Valloire to where the road over Galibier adjoins the Lautaret. Normally, out in the countryside, it’s only the stage route roads which are closed. At stage start or stage finish towns, however, often other roads are closed too.

I’ve done what you propose several times, i.e. reaching the route from a sideways-adjoing road - in 2012 twice, and about 3 other times in earlier years too.
Only once in the Vosges, do I remember a sideways-adjoing road being blocked to traffic short of its junction with the route - by about 5 km as from 2-3 hours before the riders came by. However, I had my bike in the car, so rode to the junction and then along the route to a good spec.

You can get exact information on road closures shortly before the stage - usually the local newspaper (in your location, Le Dauphiné Libéré) will list all road-closure information the day before or the morning of the stage, and some websites will also have info, e.g. http://savoie-route.fr/. Also, the tourist office in Valloire should know.

You also write, having reached the Lautaret, about “freewheeling on bikes down to a nice spot to watch them”. If you mean to go in the Bourg d’Oisans direction to see them climbing up to the top of the Lautaret, i.e. to go downhill in the opposite direction to the stage route direction, you might have a problem if you leave it late.
Usually the police will stop even cyclists heading in the opposite direction to the Tour 2-3 hours before the riders will appear (motor traffic will have been stopped much earlier). But they'll let you walk down!

If you instead decide to see the riders on the Izouard, I’d guess you can probably still drive down to Briancon up to latest 11.00, but from Briancon you’ll probably have to cycle up the Izouard – that will almost certainly be closed to motor traffic by noon and more likely even 6-12 hours earlier.

christiandransfield

Thanks for your fantastic reply! I was hoping that that may be the case.

I definitely had Le Dauphiné Libéré in mind... thanks for that. Hadn't thought about the tourist office (silly boy), so thanks for mentioning that!

aah, it's a relief that, at the worst, we'll be able to walk down then! As we're going to be staying in Valloire, I'm assuming seeing them around the Col du Lautaret would be less of a pain to get to... Planning to head down the mountain (towards Bourg d'Oisans) for about 2 miles to a hairpin section!

As we'll be cycling up a lot of mountains on every day other than this, I think we'll be glad of not having to cycle/walk too far! Sounds as though you've had some great experiences over there!

christiandransfield

Also, we'll be watching them on the stage finishing at the top of Hautacam, and at the Paris finish. Do you know if it's a ticketed, or come and grab a place early for free affair near the finishing lines?