As the Tour de France hit the foot of Plateau de Beille on Sunday afternoon, a graphic appeared on the screen with the details of the climb. Viewers were informed the ascent was 15.8km long and the average gradient was 7.9%, and they were also told that the fastest time up the climb had been recorded by Thibaut Pinot.
This was true only to a point. Pinot’s time of 45:08, clocked on the Tour’s last visit in 2015, was the quickest time recorded on the Strava app. In a different and more analogue age, however, the late Marco Pantani had clocked a time of 43:20 on the 1998 Tour, while Jamie Burrow was reputed to have been even quicker when the under-23 Ronde de l’Isard came up here the next year.
