Shake legs and laces

The Lacets de Montvernier – a tongue-twister name, and the road to go with it is no less crazy. Barely out of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, barely warmed up, when the carousel begins: seventeen hairpin bends, so tightly packed it looks as if a bored engineer had lost his ruler and instead used a corkscrew to plan.

At the top, it's not the elevation gain that hurts – it's the constant transition: out of the saddle, back in, left, right, left, right, like a delirious metronome. And every time, you think it's the last turn, only for the mountain to spitefully add another one.

The Tour de France, of course, has also passed through here – for the first time in 2015. Since then, television has turned the Lacets into an icon: a moving dragon of colorful jerseys, chewing its way through the rock face like a cartoon snake. In reality, it's narrower, steeper, closer to the abyss.

There's no big sign at the top, no triumphal arch, just the turnoff further towards the Col du Chaussy. But once you've climbed, you'll never forget the Lacets – one of those roads that packs more drama into five kilometers than others do in an entire stage.