L’Alpe d’Huez is the most iconic climb of the Tour de France and today, for the first time in 100 editions of the race, the riders will climb it twice in one day.
What awaits them? Just 13.8km of climbing at an average gradient of 8.1 per cent, and, of course, the legendary 21 hairpin bends.
Fausto Coppi, Il Campionissimo, one of the greatest riders in the history of the sport, won on the climb’s first appearance in the Tour in 1952.
This year’s elite – Froome, Contador, Quintana et al – would love to claim victory on the first ‘double d’Huez’ of La Grande Boucle.
