A Dutch cycling journalist, Wagendorp covered the Tour de France for De Volskrant, a daily newspaper, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and in The Prologue has already written one well-received Dutch language cycling novel.

But Ventoux is a cycling novel in the same way Tom Ward’s excellent The Departure is an apocalyptic novel. And that is to say cycling doesn’t dictate the book – instead it’s about friendship, triumph, tragedy and a personal journey. Bart, who narrates the story, Joost, Andre, David, Peter and Laura are school friends, but after Peter’s tragic death on a trip to Ventoux they drift apart. An unexpected email from Laura some 30 years later, however, prompts a return to conquer the mountain and the demons from their past.

Cycling remains a central theme through the novel, with times and places remembered by key events in the sport’s history. The day the six school friends become a sextet is July 14 1981, for example. Why? It was the day Dutchman Peter Winnen won atop Alpe d’Huez. Earlier, another friend had been welcomed into the group ‘shortly after Gerrie Knetemann had become world champion’.

By 2012, Bart tells us “according to the programme, Wiggins must win [the Tour de France], so that’s what will happen.” Life no longer offers such unpredictability.

Ventoux itself serves as a metaphor. You start the climb full of anticipation as it winds its way up towards the forest, before things get tough as you approach Chalet Reynard, eventually emerging onto the barren upper slopes, often alone.

The story isn’t told in linear fashion, but instead jumps between the present day and the past, which can make it difficult to follow in the early stages. Nevertheless it is a gripping story, and a relatable one. I’m half Wagendorp’s age, and so can’t attest yet to the passing of time in the same way, but the dynamics of a group of school friends – lads with the solitary girl in their group, whose affections they vie for and whose affections threaten to divide them – is strikingly familiar.

Within the main story, there are plenty more relatable sub-plots woven in. Personal journeys, triumphs, of tragedies, humour, success and of disaster – and of course, of cycling. It’s a novel which grips you, it’s a novel which makes you think, and it’s a novel which makes you reflect on your own choices. And it is a novel well worth reading.