![]() The Puy is an atmospheric, evocative climb, unlike any other used by the Tour. ![]() Mont Ventoux is certainly in with a shout, its occasional use and aura allowing it to retain an inherent sense of mystique and drama.īut for anyone in their 30s or younger, the Puy de Dôme – an asymmetric green lava dome that towers over Clermont Ferrand and the Auvergne in central France – represents a mothballed snapshot of a bygone era of professional cycling and the Tour de France, a romanticised moment (imagined or otherwise) of the sport captured in time, before EPO, Lance, and the Sky train. What about the doyennes of the Alps and Pyrenees, the Galibier and the Tourmalet? Nah. It’s not Alpe d’Huez, the ‘Wembley of cycling’, a climb so gainfully employed by the Tour since the 1970s that it became almost too familiar, to the extent that race organisers ASO have reduced it to a freelance role in recent years. ![]() But why does this mythical dome-shaped volcanic plug in the Massif Central hold such an important place in the Tour’s history, despite not being used for 35 years? And what does its return say about the race itself, and its constant and complex fascination with modernity and tradition, innovation and nostalgia?Īsk any pro cycling fan to name the most romantic, emblematic Tour de France climb, and you’ll get a dozen or so different answers and opinions. One of cycling’s dormant legends, the Puy de Dôme, will explode back into life on stage nine of the 2023 Tour de France. ![]()
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