“When you’re racing on the Bonette, you don’t think it’s beautiful; you hate it. It’s terrible, really terrible,” says Bjarne Riis, the disputed ‘winner’ of the 1996 Tour. “If you want to admire the beauty, go there for a training ride and stop to enjoy the view. But in a race it’s tough – so very tough. It’s long, it’s at high altitude, and it’s up there with one of the hardest climbs in cycling.”
This year, on Friday's stage 19, the Tour de France is returning to the roof of the world: the Cime de la Bonette. The highest paved through-road in Europe – though not the highest road on the Continent, which is Spain’s Pico Veleta (3,398m) – the Tour will go up and over the 2,802m peak for only the fifth time, and just the second time this century. Sandwiched in between two further 2,000m-plus climbs, the Col de Vars and Isola 2000, it’s a queen stage befitting of its royal title.
