LAST week we looked at the sorts of music you might like to listen to when the Tour de France is on the telly and the peloton is bowling along flat roads towards a climactic sprint finale.

Such stages are typical of the grand tour’s inaugural week, but as the race rolls further south the terrain tends to undulate.

Picturesque Alpine passes, long hot climbs and precarious twisty descents illuminate the race — the mountains are where le Tour gets grand. Your soundtrack to the bergs must reflect this majesty.

During the lower sections when the gradient is steady and the air is hot and thick you’ll want a reliable rhythm with a gradual progression which reflects the impending altitude. Since his tracks average around 47 minutes a pop, I think a bit of Fela works wonders on these drawn-out baby slopes.

As the strength sapping asphalt ramps up, drawing our Lycra clad heroes ever higher into the cold thin air of the high mountains, something a little ethereal and hypnotic will punctuate the collective grimace.

It may just be because of the mountains on the cover art but Kid A seems like an option here.

Yorke’s bass riff on The National Anthem for that grinding monotony, Everything In Its Right Place because mountains are the foundries of true tour champions but also because when they’re on the rivet they do sometimes look like they’re sucking on a lemon.

As the summit looms and attackers ping off the front you’ll want to start lining up something super hardcore for the descent.

As this year’s tour is notable for its inclusion of some particularly technical and perilous ways back down aka le Mont du Chat-all-over-Richie-Porte, I’d go for something like Welcome To The Jungle. If that’s a bit too pedestrian and ‘classic’ for you (me) then maybe some Fall or the fast ones by The Pixies like Broken Face, Break My Body, Vamos, Tame, Alec Eiffel (which is also very fitting for stage 21) etc.