An afternoon on the Mur de Huy, one of cycling’s mythical climbs

Some look down. Others rock from side to side. A brave few rise from their saddles, though they cannot stay there for long. And as they climb past six shrines on the side of the road, prayers are hyperventilated to the skies.Usually, a WorldTour peloton passes the roadside with a sonic boom of displaced air; a kaleidoscope of sound and fury that is felt rather than truly seen. Not here, as riders lurch through the finishing barriers as if in slow motion, barely parting the wispy smoke of frying onions. These are speeds the rational mind can comprehend, if never hope to match; they move so slowly that the closest spectators can almost count the lines of suffering on the riders’ contorted brows.Advertisement