In 1955, as rider number 9 in the French team led by Bobet, Malléjac prepared to ride over Mont Ventoux on stage 12 from Marseille to Avignon. It is a climb that riders have always feared because the first two-thirds are through a forest where the air seems humid and scarce and the rest through a bleak, lunar landscape that is proof of Mont Ventoux's history as a volcano. The French writer Antoine Blondin wrote: