Seat of power
One hundred and fifty clicks east-north-east of where you’re standing, 3,630m above the sea and 2,400 times larger than a football pitch, the Rhône Glacier’s reach across Switzerland and France can’t be overstated. It’s the reason for the river to your left, and the reason 1,700 cubic metres of water flows into the Mediterranean Sea, 813km away, every second.
In front of you is a much smaller manmade entity, half silhouetted, half glinting under the climbing sun. This is the UCI’s headquarters on the banks of the Rhône River in Aigle, Switzerland, and its reach across the cycling world cannot be overstated either. It would certainly explain the architecture, impenetrable and metallic, a drawbridge leading to its mouth as if a villain’s lair.
Whether David Lappartient rides his BMX around the pump-track outside is anyone’s guess, but chances are whatever race you last watched or bike you last pedalled was pored over, analysed and sanctioned inside these walls. The perfect place, then, to start and end today’s ride – at the belly of the cycling beast.
