THE TOUR'S LEFT-FIELD TURN

Stage nine of the Tour de France features 32km on the white roads of the Champagne region. Steve Shrubsall grabs his gravel bike to sample what lies in wait for the peloton

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Being the Tour de France race director must give Christian Prudhomme more than a few restless nights. In the small hours of a September morning weeks before the following year's route is announced to a clamouring crowd of riders, journalists and boulangerie proprietors - I imagine a panic-stricken Prudhomme coming to from a nightmare featuring the same old mountains and TT kilometres as the previous dozen editions. For a Tour de France to be heralded a success, a more eclectic set of stages is needed -France needs to be well and truly toured. As many stones as possible need to be turned. And for this year's route, the race director had a bona fide eureka moment.

OK, I'm not suggesting that the race director woke up one day screaming 'GRAVEL!' at the top of his lungs - but for the purposes of this feature, let's run with it - because as an explanation of one particular stage, it fits the parcours perfectly. Barely out of his pyjamas, then, and long before the boulangerie proprietors, half of the pro peloton and a cluster of journalists had the chance to enquire as to what on earth he was raving about, stage nine of this year's Tour had been signed, sealed and delivered. Fast-forward to mid-May 2024 and our CW team - me, my brother James and photographer Richard - were en route to find out for ourselves just what wild vision entered Prudhomme's mind that fateful night.

GRAPPLING WITH GRAVEL

Our destination: the rolling Champagne region, where this year's stage nine, on 7 July, will start and finish in the town of Troyes. Conjured in a moment of genius, Prudhomme and the Tour's lead course designer, Thierry Gouvenou, inserted 14 gravel sectors covering 32km of the 199km stage. A brilliant move, unless you're Remco Evenepoel who was frankly disgusted with the idea of including the chemins blancs in the 2024 Tour.