From ProCyclingUK.com
By Mathew Mitchell
Alpe d’Huez has never needed to be the steepest climb in the Tour de France to feel like the hardest. It simply has to be itself: a road that launches from the Romanche valley, bites immediately, and then forces you to keep re-finding rhythm all the way to a ski station finish that turns racing into theatre.
In 2025, the Alpe sits in a familiar space between memory and expectation. The men last raced to the summit in 2022. The Tour de France Femmes used it to decide the race in 2024. Even when it is absent, the climb still shapes how fans talk about mountain-top finishes, pressure, crowds, and what it means to win when the noise is so loud you can feel it in your chest.