The rider’s ride

Trek Émonda SL6, £2,100, trekbikes.com

steep- We’ve breached the cloudline and above it are

sided meadows crowned by a shark’s jaw mountain ridge

ramps up again, the mountainside doing its bit to drum up business for the thermal baths. A road sign reveals that we’ve covered 8km, which means there is still 10km to go. We’re not even halfway there.

As we pedal skywards above Super Barèges and the scar of its ski lift and car park, the weather finally starts to ease. We’ve breached the cloudline and above it are steep-sided meadows crowned by a shark’s jaw mountain ridge, all floodlit in sunshine. I’m reminded of that moment when an aircraft emerges from the clouds after take-off into a world of endless blue sky. Perhaps this is how it feels when a soul rises to heaven.

Today’s pearly gates, however, are still a long way off and the summit cafe, hunkered in a V-shaped cleft high on the horizon, might as well be on Mars. The succession of gradient waymarks flicker between 7% and 8% as I stand on the pedals – en danseuse as the French say – to maintain momentum. A long, sharp whistle draws my attention to a grassy slope At last, a top-end road bike built for speed that isn’t vaunting its aero qualities. My preference is for hilly and mountainous rides, so my hands spend most of their time on the hoods or either side of the stem, and obsessively chasing every wind-cheating gain is less of a priority than simply having a bike that applies whatever power I can generate to the road without shaking the fillings from my teeth. In this respect the Émonda truly excels. It’s light, smooth, climbs brilliantly and holds the road far beyond the limits of my descending skills, while Trek’s H2 geometry is sporty without being spine-challenging. A complete Ultegra groupset is great to see – if any brakes can withstand the relentless march of discs, it’s surely these – and while I habitually spend idle hours speccing up my dream bike, I wouldn’t change the Bontrager wheels. It takes a certain confidence to carry off this colour scheme, though…