Hors Catégorie classification

The top severity grading that marks out the toughest of mountains.

- Giles Belbin

As Belgium’s climbing maestro Lucien Van Impe crested the Col du Galibier at the head of the 1979 Tour de France, he recorded two pieces of history. When the Tour had last visited the Galibier in 1974, the riders had followed the route they had ridden since 1911, passing through a tunnel 89 metres below the mountain’s ridge. But the tunnel had collapsed in 1976 and was closed for safety reasons, so by the time the Tour returned in 1979 another kilometre or so of road had been hacked out of the mountain, taking riders over the top of the climb.