Altitude training is now a must for Tour de France teams: “We get on the bike, we eat, we sleep and we start again”

A desert of stones with a sun-baked hue. The setting is austere, reflecting the three weeks that the riders of the Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale cycling team are about to experience. "Here, we live like monks," confirms Austrian climber Felix Gall, who, at the beginning of June, is taking part with his teammates in a high-altitude training camp in the Savoyard resort of Arc 1950. A "necessary" stage in the preparation for the Tour de France, whose ^5th stage, a 33-kilometer individual time trial around Caen, will be a revealer of the fitness of each rider on Wednesday, July 9.

"At home, it's impossible to be at 100%, with my child who can wake me up at night," says Stefan Bissegger. "Here, we get on the bike, we eat, we sleep and we start again... We all work towards one goal: to improve during long and intense efforts," explains the 2023 Swiss time trial champion, who fell during the first stage of the 2025 Tour and had to abandon.

The village is deserted. The five runners, accompanied by a coach, a mechanic, a cook, and a physiotherapist, occupy a lodge resembling the Overlook Hotel, the isolated establishment where Jack Nicholson loses his mind in Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining . The nearest small town, Bourg-Saint-Maurice, nestled between the steep walls of high mountains, is located in the valley, about forty minutes away by car.

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