In this year’s Tour de France, in the eighth stage, Because Bogacha turned on the violent mode, and in the final climbing stage, he directly exceeded 17 people. Although not the segment champion, but still beat all opponents, the overall result rank first, he put on the yellow jersey as he wishes, the powerful output of the entire process absolutely absorbs countless fans.
The stage is the first alpine stage of this tour de France, the riders will pass one category 3 climb, one category 4 climb and three category 1 climbs for a total of 150.8km. It is a combination of different climbing stages. So how is the classification of climb divided in the tour of France and how did it come about ? Let me show you now.
It is said that in the early stage of last century, cars were not as powerful as they are today, if a hill can be climbed by a 35-horsepower car in 4th gear,it is called grade 4 climb. A hill that can be climbed in 3rd gear, it is called grade 3 climb, so on and so forth to grade 1. If it is a hill that a car can not climb, it is grade HC. Believe it or not, this statement indicates the difficulty of the relevant climbing levels. So how are these climbing classes classified today？
At the first Tour de France in 1933, there was only one class for the hilltop finish, with 10 points awarded to the first person to pass. After World War Two in 1947, there were two classes for the hill top finish, with the first and second finishers receiving 10 and 5 points each. In 1962, the difficulty of climbing was divided into 4 levels.The four levels climbing category could not meet the requirements of the event and the level HC(Hors Categorie) came into being and was added to the tour de France climbing level division.
How to classify the climbing levels.
In fact, the current tour de France climbing grade is based on the height of the mountain, climbing distance, the average slope and other factors to divide into 5 grades, respectively 4, 3, 2, 1 and HC level, the difficulty of grade 4 is the easiest, the smaller the number, the higher the difficulty,HC level is the highest and most difficult level.
Grade HC is short for French”Hors Categorie”, it is a term used in cycling, refer in particular to the climbing of beyond the level. HC was used to refer to the mountain road that car can not pass, we can see the difficulty of climbing and steepness from the literal meaning.
Slope calculation formula of tour de France
((Average slope (%))^(3/2)* Altitude climb (m))/100
Grade 4≦20
20 < grade 3 ≦50
50 < grade 2 ≦120
120 < grade 1 ≦200
Grade HC > 200
Calculate with an average slope of 5% and a total climb of 1200 meters above sea level, which is:5^(3/2)*1200/100=134. 134 is between 120 and 200, it belongs to grade 1, then we can conclude that the difficulty rating of the climb is grade 1.
Climbing points
Grade HC: 25-20-16-14-12-8-6-4-2-1 points.
Grade 1: 10-8-6-4-2-1 points
Grade 2: 5-3-2-1 points
Grade 3: 2-1 points
Grade 4: 1 pint.
The first rider to pass the hill gets the highest points, and the remaining riders who pass the hill get the remaining points. The rider with the highest total climbing points over the 21 stages of the Tour de France will wear the King of Climbs polka dot shirt.
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