Col Du Tourmalet Western Valley 2. Pyrenees 2024 Photograph - Limited Edition of 25

The 2024 Tour De France will feature the Col Du Tourmalet for a 90th time; more than any other mountain pass in the history of the event. At the beginning of May, I set off from Lourdes to ride and photograph the 2115m pass to discover just what its appeal is. Out of season and closed to traffic, it gave a unique view of the climb, laying dormant with the ghosts of cycling past. The Pyrenees were first included in the 1910 edition of the Tour De France, at the insistence of Alphonse Steinès, a colleague of the then organiser, Henri Desgrange. Steinés hired a driver to investigate the Tourmalet. After 16km the car came to a halt and Steinés continued on foot. Slipping on ice, he fell into a stream before clambering back to the road. Found hyperthermic and stumbling in the night, he was rescued and put up in the nearby village of Barèges. Steines then famously sent a telegram to Desgrange: "Crossed Tourmalet. Very good road. Perfectly feasible". Featured on Good Sport: Medium Format colour negative professionally scanned and printed using Hahnemuhle PhotoRag cotton based archival paper. Editions come with a certificate of authenticity from the print studio.