The peloton of the Women’s Tour de France with Zwift is already looking to the big stage this Saturday with the arrival at one of the great colossi of the Tour de France: the Col du Tourmalet, which was also climbed in the recent Men’s Tour de France. and that it will also be the end of the stage in the next edition of La Vuelta.
Illi Gardner commands the Aspin and also the Tourmalet
As it happened in the Men’s Tour, the Col d’Aspin will be the great aperitif prior to the climb to Tourmalet in this first category climb with its 12 kilometers at 6.5%.
An ascent in which the British cyclist Illi Gardner, who holds the Everesting women’s world record (to complete a route with an accumulated positive difference of 8,849 meters in the shortest possible time, the altitude of the summit of Everest), has the QOM or best time on Strava since June 22 with a record of 38:03 at an average of 18.9 km/h.
However, all the prominence will fall on one of the historic peaks of the Tour de France, andl Col du Tourmalet, Hors Categorie pass with its 17.1 kilometers at 7.5% average gradient that the cyclists will ascend the Campan slope and pass through La Mongie before crowning at 2,110 meters of altitude.
A climb to Tourmalet in which the British Illi Gardner also has the QOM or best time of the climb on Strava with a record of 55:28 at an average of 18.1 km/h. It should be noted that Gardner and the also British Emma Pooley have been the only two cyclists to have climbed the Tourmalet in less than an hour, an achievement that from this Saturday they will compete with the great figures of the women’s peloton in this historic ascent of the Tourmalet.