The Tour de France is first geography lesson, second a bicycle race. Before a pedal has been turned we check maps and look at elevation profiles to parse the route. Mountains, valleys, plains and coastlines matter.
But just as a teacher gives the same lesson to a different class every year, the Tour tends to repeat the same climbs over the years as the riders come and go. Only 2014 has a new climb, the Col de Palaquit. Almost one thousand metres in vertical gain and with double-digit gradients it looks hard on paper. What is it like to ride?
