The Tour de France tackles the Ballon dAlsace today, and will do again tomorrow too. Its the first big mountain climbed by the Tour de France and the first celebration of climbing in the race and possibly the origin of the mythology of the climber as a lone rider ahead of the rest. And recently its been the subject of a mini-polemic.The first two editions of the Tour de France tackled some climbs Massif central but they were not features of the race to the point where theres debate over what the first mountain pass used by the race was, the settled view now is the humdrum Col du Pin Bouchain. In 1905 the Ballon dAlsace was the first major mountain used in the race.Ren Pottier was first to the top and when the race returned the following year he was first again and so the sports first identifiable climber. There is a monument at the top to Pottier which celebrates how he overtook everyone to arrive solo at the top of the climb, perhaps the origin story of mythical climbers. For all the history the Ballon dAlsace has been used sparingly, today is the 22nd time the Tour visits.Literally the balloon of Alsace in French, the spherical association can also be applied to a glass of wine, you can ask for un ballon de rouge as in a glass of red in a bar. Tour chronicler, pun artist and drunkard Antoine Blondin played on this double meaning in his despatch printed on 5 July 1969.Its poetic to imagine the mountain with gentle, globular shape of a wine glass. But not linguistic, the origins of the ballon label here are debated, it could be from the celtic tribes, you can derive it from the Latin pabulum.Le Ballon dAlsace can confuse. Its a ballon, its in the Alsace but the definite article is a trap as there are more ballons nearby. Theres the Ballon de Servance, and within riding distance are the Grand Ballon and the Petit Ballon. The Grand Ballon helpfully lives up to its name as the highest point of the Vosges mountains at 1,424m.Theres been a mini-polemic in the French media earlier this year regarding the Tours visit with stories of 900 trees being felled just so that the race can ride past, eg Le Parisien. Shameful! A scandal! Well it might be if it were true.Forestry workers did cut down many trees near the road in April and May this year, all in time for the race. But its got little to do with the Tour. While the top of the Ballon is exposed grassland, the flanks are covered by forest. Some trees have storm damage, others are prone to being toppled in a future storm, some are weakened from heat stress which in turn is helping a beetle which damages the pine trees. Its common practice, and the law, to cut vegetation within two metres of all roads in France for safety, both so branches dont fall on the road and to keep the roads drier.The decision to start the works in April somehow got linked to the Tour coming, seemingly on a Facebook page. This kicked off a polmique about the race cutting down trees, the gigantisme of Tour devouring nature in its way. Only the local commune approved this regular work back in 2023, long before anyone knew the Tour was coming. But delays and bureaucracy meant it took years for the works to start.Theres a lesson in causation and correlation, about someone being mistaken about something, others wanting to believe it and then it all going viral with wider media running provocative headlines only to deny the story in small print several paragraphs below. If its largely harmless when it comes to trees and the Tour, you wonder about more sensitive issues.These days as well rating a climb for its distance and gradient, organisers now take notes on the leaf canopy. Not so they can rev up their chainsaws but instead because it affords shade to the riders, something increasingly valuable on hot days. Tomorrows final climb of the Col du Haag is a case in point and because its a cycle path and not a highway the trees can grow right by the road.The post Postcard from the Ballon dAlsace first appeared on The Inner Ring.