Alpe d’Huez is neither the highest, nor the steepest, nor the most difficult ascent of the tour – but it’s still a myth. About why this mountain has such status for the peloton.
“Alpe d’Huez is not a mountain like any other,” says someone who has dealt with the history of the Tour de France more intensively than probably anyone else. Jean-Paul Ollivier, a journalist for decades, has earned the reputation of tour historian. He has written dozens of books about the world’s largest cycling race, he has written biographies of many great cycling professionals, he knows the results, the decisive attacks and heartbreaking slumps of all previous events since 1903. So when Jean-Paul Ollivier says Alpe d’Huez is no mountain like the others, then that’s the way it is.