After looking at today’s stage route (just started a couple of minutes ago – turn on the tube!) in a little detail, I realized that I’ve probably ridden on a little bit of it in the past. Sure enough, a good stretch from around 30 km into the stage to the top of the first col, was part of Stephen’s and my giant route from Ventoux to the top of Alpe d’Huez last year.

The pros won’t be able to take advantage of this, but right after the col sign above is a nice little mountain cafe, where a cold San Pellegrino (plus frites) was waiting for us on our warm day in July.

After this first of today’s 5 categorized climbs, there’s a lovely descent to a lake/dam, where we turned left and the peloton will go right.