'It's good to be humbled. It tends to make you less of an idiot': We rode up the longest continuous mountain pass in France, that you've probably never heard of

Pictures of Dan Baines climbing the Col de la Vergio .

Mankind's gravitational pull towards mountain ranges – for recreation, at least – is a relatively recent phenomenon. Before Horace-Bénédict de Saussure's expedition to Mont Blanc in 1786, mountains were largely regarded as places of danger. People ventured onto them only when necessity demanded it: to hunt, wage war or keep watch over the land.

Nowadays, we positively throw ourselves at them. Every year, hikers, runners, skiers, rock climbers and, of course, cyclists are drawn to the mountains in their thousands. We cyclists, in particular, love nothing more than squaring up to a sky-bound ribbon of tarmac and letting rip.