For a long time the polka-dot banner was where the Col du Pain stopped. You rode under it and within a minute you were back on the lake loop. In 1.38.0 I put a fork just after that line. The Col card offers to keep you climbing, and with 450 m to go a big choice pops up mid-screen and makes the same offer.
Tap Straight on, or hit B. Mist swallows you and the screen goes white for a few seconds. A stone gate comes out of it, and past the gate the lanterns flick on one by one up the road ahead. Up here it's always night, no matter the hour down on the rest of the course.
Why I built a second climb
Three minutes. That's roughly what the Col du Pain takes a 75 kg rider pushing 380 W, so it suits a leaderboard but never asks you to pace yourself. I was after something longer, a climb that stays easy for five minutes and then gets hard in the final two.
The Col du Baguette keeps going for 3.4 km and averages 7.5 %. Starting at the foot of the Col du Pain, a 75 kg rider on an 8 kg bike needs roughly 15 minutes at 350 W. At 250 W it's nearer 20. Those numbers come out of the game's physics, which is the model your rider runs on every time you ride.
I wanted it taller. The watts won't allow it. A 75 kg rider at 350 W can't climb faster than about 1,400 metres an hour, steep road or not, and a quarter of an hour at that pace is roughly 330 metres. So that's what the road gains: about 966 m at the Col du Pain's foot, 1,295 m at the lighthouse. Strava shows the same figures in your ride file.
A second pass in 1.39
1.38.0 shipped the first version. I rode it and it looked half done. The night was a single flat purple and the fans stood around in darkness. Higher up, once the snow started, I could barely pick out the road.
So for 1.39.0 I reworked the climb from bottom to top, six rounds of it, checking every round against my sketch. One rule held the whole time: night, yes, but the road stays visible. Light from the lanterns and the fans' torches now falls on the asphalt and the snow, on the houses and on people's faces. The bread ovens throw some too.
The climb, part by part
First comes the Bois des Lanternes. It's a pine forest with low mist between the trunks, and every twenty metres there's a lantern on a pole. Not much happens in there. A handful of fans wait by the road, each carrying their own light.
After the trees you reach the Hameau des Fours, a hamlet of stone houses. Every second house has a bread oven in front with its mouth glowing, and bulbs are strung over the street. The crowd begins here. They line both sides, tight.
Then four hairpins with frost on the tarmac: the Lacets de Givre. A sign at each bend gives its number and a bread, so Virage 4 is Pain de seigle and Virage 1 is Brioche. At some point on these bends the cloud drops below you. Glance back from a hairpin and the lanterns you've passed mark out the road beneath, sitting on top of a sea of cloud.
Beyond the hairpins is the Galerie de Neige. The snow walls on either side stand more than four metres high, with warm lights glowing from niches dug into them, and above you there are stars.
Then the Mur de Feu: 320 m at 11.5 %. Fans crowd in from both sides with torches raised and leave roughly three metres of road for you. It levels off at the top on a pass between two snowy peaks, where a lighthouse sweeps its beam across the cloud. Look at that beam properly and you'll see it's a golden loaf.
The top
Ride under the polka-dot banner at the summit and five extra baguettes land on top of whatever the ride already earns you. The server pays them, and only if your ride file actually contains the climb. Skipping ahead won't get you any.
The climb also has a Leaderboard of its own, beside the Col du Pain one. The clock runs from the foot of the Col du Pain up to the lighthouse. Your Col du Pain time is still taken as you pass, so one trip up gets you onto both.
At the lighthouse you loop round and head back down the way you came. That got quick in 1.40.0. You're doing about 50 km/h through the hairpins, tucked low and leaning in. By now most of the fans have left, though a few hang on with a lantern to watch you pass. Near the bottom the mist lets you out onto the Col du Pain's descent, and the time of day is back to whatever it was when you went up.
Other riders on the Col du Baguette see you when you're both in the mist. Anyone on the lake loop loses sight of you until you're back down.
