Route Blog Stage 17. St Gervais - Courchevel. 166km
Between December and June, we’re going to blog, one stage at a time, about the 2023 Tour de France route. You’ll find stage descriptions for every stage on our Route page.
Courchevel is 50km due south of St Gervais but we take three times as many kilometres to get there. Remember the geology lesson from stage 16… well to get from St Gervais to Courchevel, we pass over that glacial landscape complete with jagged rocks and more gentle pastures.
Courchevel is part of a different ski area; les 3 vallées and that used to be enough to keep this very upmarket resort village in business. However, with climate change and unreliable snow a more pressing concern each year, Courchevel is finally getting in on the year-round act.
Courchevel (which is actually 4 villages joined together) was the first ski resort to be planned (in 1942) from scratch, rather than being built around existing villages – so it really is important that tourism is sustainable here.
We’ll cycle up the Meribel side of Col de la Loze and down the Courchevel side (paved and opened in 2020 and 2019 respectively). Cars are not permitted and so (along with the fame brought by the Tour de France) naturally attract cyclists. We’ll cycle down to our hotel on the shores of Biollay lake – the perfect place for a dip after a long ride!
Courchevel is in the top ten most expensive places in the world to buy property and has the highest concentration of Michelin stars anywhere in the world. If you come in the winter, there are famous faces at every turn… in the summer it’s more likely to be us, our bikes and a lot of perfect, empty tarmac.
This stage is part of the following Loops: Second half, Mountains Week & Grand Loop.
Don’t just watch it; Ride it!