Not a road but a track and not a place to ride but a venue to visit. Still this series is about exploring legendary locations so here is the chance to look at the most famous of six day races. Or alternatively one of the last few surviving winter track contests.
We celebrate the summit finishes and often forget the roads the roads that preceed them. Today’s the chance to venerate a climb that’s used en route to many a Tour de France stage finish and it’ll be scaled twice next July.
It’s worth riding for its own sake and ideal to combine with other high mountain passes in the area.
The hardest climb you’ve never heard of? The Giro d’Italia has included the Colle Fauniera sparingly and perhaps needs to go back at some point to correct this. For everyone else it’s open all summer and is one of the most spectacular climbs in the Alps.
New for the 2015 Tour, this is Hairpin Heaven. Alpe d’Huez might be famous for its 21 bends but here’s a road with 18 hairpins in short formation. One bend follows another, a helter-skelter for the road cyclist and just a short spin away from some of the famous climbs of the Tour de France. But is it as good as it looks?
Pra-Loup has only been used twice in the Tour de France. It is the the climb that defeated Eddy Merckx and on the route of the Tour de France and Dauphiné for 2015. Is it enough to make anyone nervous?
It’s only appeared once in the Vuelta but La Farrapona has already made a name for itself. There’s the Alto de la Farrapona as the climb and the Vuelta lists the finish as the Lagos de Somiedo. But La Farrapona has stuck. What’s it like to ride?
Not one but three climbs. Why a trilogy? Simply because if you climb the first you can keep going, riding an Alpine sine wave across the Chartreuse range to follow a legendary race route.
Legendary? Yes because this has decided the result of the Tour de France several times. Many have not heard of this and the Chartreuse Trilogy is falling of the radar. Proof that a road’s status is dependent on regular visits by the Tour?
Most climbs are famous for racing but there are few exceptions where a mountain is better known as a training location. You might think of Mont Teide or the Col de la Madone, here is one of Italy’s asphalt gymnasiums, a timed segment decades before Strava arrived.
If it’s famous as testing ground for pro cyclists, the reality on a Sunday morning is that it’s one of the most popular cycling routes in Italy with cyclists of all shapes and sizes tackling its slopes.
Does it exist? Stage 18 of this summer’s Tour de France finishes in Hautacam but many maps don’t show anywhere called Hautacam. But it’s testimony to the geopolitical force of the Tour and the tourism industry that, like an invading army, the map of France gets rewritten.
What is certain is that the climb exists and if it is a relative newcomer to the Tour de France, it’s a case-study of Pyrenean climbing with an irregular road.