A few months after winning on a raucous Alpe d’Huez wearing the yellow jersey, Geraint Thomas snuck back to the place of his greatest triumph to check if it had really happened. Signposts on each of the Alpe’s famous 21 hairpins bear the names of riders to have conquered the Tour de France climb, and immortalised among the greats like Fausto Coppi and Bernard Hinault, Thomas found his own name written on the 13th bend.
Presumably whoever was in charge of the Alpe’s signage was not a cycling fan, because the Welshman climbed halfway up only to discover his name had been written the wrong way around – “Thomas Geraint”. Today, if you look closely, you can still see where the correction covers the initial mistake.
