The Haute Route

What is it?

In summary it offers seven stages as it heads from north to south across the Alps:

• It’s a tour: there’s a scenic route across many famous climbs used by the Tour de France. The event is able to appropriate the legendary status of these climbs as an attraction to bring in riders from around the world.
• It’s sport: the stages are timed, there is an overall classification and riders are not expected to stop for lunch along the way. In fact British cyclist Emma Pooley is riding because the stage race aspect is useful training for her ahead of the world championships in September
• It’s a business: Entries cost €1,200 and that is before a rider has paid for overnight accommodation or any other expenses. The total cost for participants is going to be high but places are sold out fast (2012 booked out in less than 8 hours) suggesting the price could be raised.

Women’s teams might be folding, even some of the World Tour teams are hunting for sponsors despite guaranteed Tour de France exposure. Yet some areas of cycle travel are booming. The closer this is linked to pro cycling and the big roads of France, the faster places sell out and the bigger the premium.
 
I wonder if teams can make the crossover here to exploit this? Or perhaps race organisers, for example ASO already does this with the Tour de France but there must be scope for multi-day events with the higher margins given accommodation, logistics and more can be billed. If not then tourism companies, sports event businesses and others are going to be rushing into the space.

And a response from our good mate Larry:

Larry T.August 23, 2012 at 9:53 pm

Cervelo had sort of a “dude ranch” thing while Trek’s done similar things in the past. I believe Cannondale is getting involved too. I find it kind of funny, having left an outfit we worked ten years with before starting CycleItalia in 1998 because (just one of many reasons) we grew tired of the “I coulda won the Giro if I’d only had the time” attitude of many of the clients. If these operators see money to be made from this type of client, more power to ‘em! While we too enjoy the challenge of some of the famous climbs (in Italy) our goal is to enjoy that challenge without caring about making some sort of competition out of what is supposed to be a vacation. In fact, I take great care to try to screen OUT anyone displaying a fragile ego that they might want to boost by beating up on our other clients on the bike. The only competition we encourage is who can enjoy their vacation the most and we find that person is rarely the one who rides the fastest or does the most kilometers during the tour. While we’ve NEVER sold out an itinerary in 8 hours in our history, our post-tour evaluations and the number of repeat clients convinces us we’re on the right track and offer something unique in the bike tour biz.

The full article is at: http://inrng.com/2012/08/haute-route-future/#more-10565