Back in 1994 Val Thorens became the location for one of the Tour de France end of stages. It was stage 17 which saw the cyclists climb the very challenging steep hair-pined road up to the highest ski resort in Europe. As you can see in this video the mist comes in which can change the temperature quite dramatically. Because of the altitude the cyclists couldn’t sleep in Val Thorens but instead stayed lower down in St Martin de Belleville for the night and took a car back up to Val Thorens for the decent the following day. Val Thorens has not since hosted the Tour de France which we think is mainly due to the road, over the years of hard weather and 6 months coaches driving up and down the road it has got quite bumpy. They re-tarmac the road most years but it seems it is a quick fix. There is talk that they will host the Tour de France again, but, it is only talk at the moment. If you would like to see these super-fit guys climb up to Val Thorens we have added this video to this page.
Val Thorens host Tour de France.