00:00 (orchestral music)
00:03 With a year to go until the Olympics come here to Paris,
00:06 the countdown to the games is now on.
00:08 Over the past few weeks,
00:10 organizers have been unveiling
00:11 how they're going to showcase the French capital
00:13 as the world's most beautiful sport venue
00:16 when the games come in 2024.
00:18 That includes volleyball under the Eiffel Tower,
00:21 swimming in the Seine River,
00:23 and a difficult cycling circuit here
00:25 in the hills of Montmartre.
00:26 (orchestral music)
00:30 France is no stranger to picturesque bike riding.
00:32 This, of course, is the country
00:34 that puts the Tour de France on every year,
00:37 whose finisher is crowned under the Arc de Triomphe.
00:39 Though Montmartre is here in the heart of Paris,
00:42 cyclists will have to climb roughly 10 miles
00:44 of incredibly narrow streets made of cobblestone,
00:47 and it gets harder.
00:48 On top of that, the incline is something to be fought with,
00:51 about a 6.5% grade going up.
00:55 To see if my Olympic chops could be ready in time for 2024,
00:59 I decided to check out a bike and give it a shot myself.
01:02 So clearly, I'm not the best cyclist in the world,
01:06 but the real challenge here will be moving ahead
01:08 and getting ahead during the circuit stages.
01:10 These are already incredibly narrow streets.
01:13 It's hard to imagine several dozen cyclists
01:16 all piling in here,
01:17 trying to get ahead of each other to the top.
01:19 To get to the highest point in Paris,
01:21 this time I'm using an electric bike,
01:23 but Olympians won't be so lucky.
01:25 When you finally reach the top,
01:28 you'll see the famed Sacre Coeur Basilica,
01:30 but also charming streets
01:32 that make this neighborhood a tourist favorite.
01:35 Many tourists, though,
01:36 have opted to get there via the funicular
01:38 and aren't sure they'd try biking up.
01:41 We took a lot of stairs and not so much the incline,
01:43 but yes, we had to stop at several points.
01:46 I don't know that I could do it myself.
01:48 How much would someone have to pay you right now
01:50 to actually convince you to get up to the top on a bicycle?
01:54 Um, the cost of this trip, maybe, yeah.
01:57 (laughing)
01:58 I would do it for the cost of the trip as well, yeah.
02:00 And despite the billion dollar price tag,
02:02 the city of lights is betting big
02:05 that next year's Olympics are worth every penny.
02:08 In Paris, France, I'm Ryan Thompson for Newsnet.
02:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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