FOOLS ON THE HILL
Early on the morning after the Tour’s last – and very first – visit to the Mur de Péguère in 2012, a handful of reporters could still be found at the summit, scribbling in their notebooks. The previous afternoon had not delivered a spectacle for the ages and the annals; no, they were there because some ne’er-do-well had littered the road with nails, causing panic, punctures, crashes and the brief neutralisation of a stage eventually won by Luis Leon Sanchez. The local police launched an investigation, but, five years later, still haven’t identified the 2012 saboteur or the motive for the villainous act. The good news is that the race will return to the narrow, savagely steep and ravishingly pretty Mur on stage 13 this year - and hopefully create happier memories. The likelihood of that is increased by the climb coming at the end of the Tour’s shortest road stage for years, just 100km. It should be fast, exciting and ripe for attacks, one hopes, strictly of the on-the-bike variety.