WORDS OF THE TOUR #2: Hors Catégorie

The 2021 Tour de France hits Mont Ventoux today (twice), one of the cycling world’s most legendary climbs, the The Giant of Provence features a “Hors Catégorie” (HC) climb on the second ascent from Bédoin (15.7 km at 8.8%).

“Hors Catégorie” (“outside categorisation”) climbs are the toughest on any given Tour and were first used in 1979, adding to the existing four categories of climbs, each of which offer different amounts of points in the King of the Mountains competition.

Legend has it that the categories were originally named after the gear on a Citroen 2CV that would be required to get over them (fourth gear for a fourth cat. climb, first gear for a first cat. climb, etc.). Since the 2CV only had four gears they simply ran out of options after that, hence the term “Hors Catégorie”.