The Tour de France starts here

Yesterday, I rode up the Ballon d’Alsace, a mountain in the Vosges range that was the first hill ever included in the Tour de France, which starts this Saturday in London. By the standards of the Tour, it’s a minor climb — just five miles uphill, with an average gradient of seven percent — nothing like the monsters of the Pyrenees and the Alps that riders will be grinding up in a few weeks. It was unseasonably wet and cold, with heavy winds and driving rain, but I hadn’t come all the way to France to sit in the hotel. In happier times, I would have been excited to ride in the shadow of legends: Through water-blurred glasses I could see the hundreds of messages painted by fans the last time the Tour made its way over this mountain in 2005.

Much like the messages on the asphalt under my wheels, some of the sport’s magic has faded in the past two years.