The Great Cycling Climbs of France: Riding the Tour de France

Every July the Tour de France turns a handful of French mountain roads into the most famous climbs in cycling. The rest of the year they're just roads: you can ride the same hairpins, read the same names painted on the tarmac and stop at the same summit cafés. This guide brings together 35 of the great Tour de France climbs in one place, from Alpe d'Huez and the Galibier to the Tourmalet and Mont Ventoux, with the classic side of each, how long and steep it is, when it's open and the Tour moments that made it famous.

Every climb in the guide now has its own TrailX route up the classic side, so you can open the map, check the elevation profile, download the GPX and ride it yourself. The interactive map above shows every climb, plus France's great long-distance cycle routes for when you'd rather follow a river than fight a mountain. Tap a pin or a line for the details.

How to read this guide

• Figures are for the classic Tour side. Most big climbs can be ridden from two or three directions. We give the side the Tour uses most, with its length, average gradient and height gain as published (mostly Wikipedia and climb databases such as cyclingcols and cols-cyclisme). Sources measure from slightly different start points, so treat the numbers as close, not exact.
• Altitudes are approximate and given for the road's high point or the usual Tour finish.
• TrailX routes are planned, not recorded. Each one follows the mapped road from the start town to the summit, checked against the published distance and climb. They start in the town centre, so most are a little longer than the official climb.
• Seasons are typical. The high passes are usually open from about late May or June to October, but snow, rockfall and roadworks move those dates every year.

A short history of the Tour in the mountains

The first Tour de France, in 1903, was a publicity stunt by the newspaper L'Auto and its editor Henri Desgrange: six stages and 2,428 km, with 60 starters and 21 finishers. It avoided real mountains. That changed in 1905, when the race climbed the Ballon d'Alsace in the Vosges, its first official mountain. In 1910 it went to the Pyrenees, over the Tourmalet and the Aubisque, where Octave Lapize famously shouted "Assassins!" at the organisers. The Alps followed in 1911 with the Galibier.

The King of the Mountains competition began in 1933. The polka-dot jersey came much later, in 1975, the same year the race first finished on the Champs-Élysées. Since 1947 the Souvenir Henri Desgrange has rewarded the first rider over the Tour's highest point each year, and when the race crosses the Galibier it's awarded beside Desgrange's memorial near the summit.

The 2026 Tour in the mountains

The 2026 Tour started in Barcelona and finished on the Champs-Élysées, and Tadej Pogačar won it for the fifth time. The mountains were the story: the Tourmalet and Aspin on stage 6 to Gavarnie, the Ballon d'Alsace and Grand Ballon in the Vosges, and a final weekend unlike any before. Stage 19 finished at Alpe d'Huez by the classic 21 hairpins, where Pogačar set a new record of 35'26". The next day, the queen stage crossed the Croix de Fer, Télégraphe and Galibier and finished at Alpe d'Huez again, via the Col de Sarenne: the first time the Tour had finished on the Alpe two days running. Richard Carapaz won it and took the polka-dot jersey.

The Northern Alps: Savoie, Isère and Haute-Savoie

This is the heart of Tour climbing: the Maurienne and Tarentaise valleys, the Oisans around Le Bourg-d'Oisans and the passes of Haute-Savoie. Many of these climbs link up, so you can build huge days: the Télégraphe and Galibier, or the Glandon and Croix de Fer, are classic pairings. Our Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes cycling routes are a good place to start.

Alpe d'Huez is the climb everyone knows: 21 numbered hairpins above Le Bourg-d'Oisans, each named after a stage winner. It hosted the Tour's first summit finish in 1952, when Fausto Coppi won and kept yellow to Paris, and in 1986 Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond crossed the line together, arm in arm. In 2026 it became the first Tour finish used on two consecutive days.

Col du Galibier is often the highest point of the race and one of its oldest climbs, first used in 1911. The classic way up is from Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne over the Col du Télégraphe and down to Valloire, then 18 km more to the top: about 35 km of climbing in all. Cyclists can't use the summit tunnel, so you ride the old road over the top, past Desgrange's memorial.

The Croix de Fer and Glandon share their upper road: the Glandon turns off about 2.5 km below the Croix de Fer. The Glandon's last two kilometres from La Chambre are over 10%. Across the valley, the Col de la Madeleine is a long, steady beast that has been rated hors catégorie every time since 1995.

The Col de l'Iseran, at 2,764 m, is the highest paved pass in the Alps and the high point of the Route des Grandes Alpes. In 2019 hail and a mudslide stopped the race on its descent, and Egan Bernal took the yellow jersey at the summit. The newest legend is the Col de la Loze above Méribel, first used in 2020. Its upper 7 km are a cycle-only road with ramps up to 24%, and in 2023 it was where Tadej Pogačar cracked and told his team radio "I'm gone, I'm dead".

The Southern Alps and Provence

South of the Galibier the climbs get higher, drier and wilder: the Queyras, the Ubaye and the Mercantour, where the Route des Grandes Alpes crosses pass after pass on its way to the Mediterranean. Then, alone on the plain of Provence, stands the Giant of Provence: Mont Ventoux. See our Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur cycling routes.

Mont Ventoux is a climb apart: 21.8 km from Bédoin, through forest and then up a bare white moonscape of limestone to a weather station at 1,910 m. It's often hit by the mistral, and the race has had to stop short of the top. It is also where the British rider Tom Simpson died, about 1 km from the summit, on 13 July 1967; his memorial stands beside the road. In 2016 Chris Froome, in yellow, ran up part of it after a crash with a motorbike. Riders who climb all three sides (Bédoin, Malaucène and Sault) in a day can join the Club des Cinglés du Mont Ventoux.

The Col d'Izoard is famous for the Casse Déserte, a lunar scree slope on its southern side with a memorial to Fausto Coppi and Louison Bobet. Our route climbs the northern side from Briançon (19 km at 5.8%). The Col de la Bonette is often billed as the highest paved road in France, though that's thanks to a loop round the Cime that reaches 2,802 m: the pass itself is at 2,715 m. In 2008 it was the highest point the Tour has ever reached. The Col Agnel sits on the Italian border at 2,744 m, and the Col de Vars is the highest French road pass kept open all winter.

The Pyrenees

The Pyrenees were the Tour's first big mountains, and they still have a character of their own: steeper, greener, more irregular climbs, with sheep, cattle and horses wandering across the road near the top. Most of the famous names sit within a day's ride of each other around Luz-Saint-Sauveur, Saint-Lary and Luchon.

The Col du Tourmalet is the most-climbed pass in Tour history, crossed 86 times since 1910. At the top there's a statue of Octave Lapize and a memorial to the Tour director Jacques Goddet. In 1913 Eugène Christophe broke his fork on the descent and repaired it himself at a forge in Sainte-Marie-de-Campan, losing hours and any chance of winning. It's climbed from Luz-Saint-Sauveur in the west or from Sainte-Marie-de-Campan in the east, and it was crossed again in both 2025 and 2026.

The Col d'Aubisque and Col du Soulor are joined by one of the great balcony roads of the Pyrenees, cut into the cliff above the Ouzom valley. The Col d'Aspin and Col de Peyresourde are the shorter links in the classic chain between the Tourmalet and Luchon.

For summit finishes, Hautacam and Luz Ardiden sit on opposite sides of the Gave de Pau valley. The Col du Portet above Saint-Lary is the highest summit finish in the French Pyrenees and one of the hardest climbs in France: 16 km at almost 9%. On the same mountainside, the Pla d'Adet is shorter and steeper. Further east, Superbagnères returned in 2025 after 36 years away, and the Plateau de Beille in the Ariège has a habit of crowning Tour winners: four men who won there went on to win the race.

The Vosges, the Jura and the Massif Central

The lower mountains of eastern and central France matter more than their height suggests. The Ballon d'Alsace was the first mountain the Tour ever climbed, in 1905, and a monument to René Pottier, first to the top that day, still stands at the summit. The Vosges came back in force in 2026.

La Planche des Belles Filles is short but brutal, and it decided the 2020 Tour: Pogačar overturned Primož Roglič in the time trial up here on the second-to-last day. Our route continues past the usual ski-station finish onto the gravel "Super Planche", with ramps of 20–24%. In the Jura, the Grand Colombier is one of the hardest climbs in France on its steeper sides, and the Col de la Faucille looks out over Lake Geneva to Mont Blanc.

The Puy de Dôme, the volcano above Clermont-Ferrand, is one of the Tour's great stages: Jacques Anquetil and Raymond Poulidor rode up it shoulder to shoulder in 1964, and the race returned in 2023 after 35 years. Its road has been closed to cyclists and cars since 2012, when a rack railway took over, so we haven't made a route for it. In Brittany, the short, sharp Mûr-de-Bretagne, nicknamed "the Breton Alpe d'Huez", has hosted several finishes, most recently in 2025.

Riding the climbs yourself

You don't need a pro licence to ride a Tour stage. Three ways to do it:

• L'Étape du Tour. Every July the organisers of the Tour run a mass-participation event over the route of a real stage, usually the queen stage, a few days before the pros. The 2026 edition, on 19 July, used the same route as stage 20: Le Bourg-d'Oisans over the Croix de Fer, Télégraphe, Galibier and Col de Sarenne to Alpe d'Huez, 170 km with about 5,400 m of climbing, for around 16,000 riders.
• La Marmotte. Held since 1982, it's one of the best-known cyclosportives in Europe: about 174 km from Le Bourg-d'Oisans over the Glandon, Télégraphe and Galibier, finishing at Alpe d'Huez, with about 5,180 m of climbing.
• Your own Grand Tour. Pick a base such as Le Bourg-d'Oisans, Valloire, Bédoin, Luz-Saint-Sauveur or Luchon and ride a different climb each day. Most of the climbs in this guide are within a short ride of at least one other.

Whichever you choose, a few things make a big difference:

1. Gear down. A compact chainset and a large cassette (34 teeth or more at the back) make long climbs much more enjoyable. Pace yourself: a 20 km climb at 7% takes most riders well over an hour.
2. Respect the descent. Many crashes on these roads happen going down. Brake before bends, not in them, and expect cars, campervans and cattle round every corner.
3. Carry layers. It can be 30°C in the valley and near freezing on top of the Galibier or Iseran. A windproof jacket for the descent is essential.
4. Check the road first. High passes open and close with the snow, and roads are sometimes closed for events, roadworks or, around the Tour itself, the race. The Ventoux summit road is shut from about mid-November to mid-April.
5. Plan your water. Fountains and cafés are common in the villages but rare above the tree line.

Beyond the climbs: France's great cycle routes

Not every great French ride goes uphill. France has one of the best networks of long-distance cycle routes in Europe, many of them traffic-free greenways along rivers, canals and coasts. They're shown on the map as lines (drawn roughly between the main towns, not as exact tracks).

La Loire à Vélo is the classic first tour: flat, well signed and lined with châteaux. ViaRhôna follows the Rhône from Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean, past Lyon and Avignon. La Vélodyssée runs the whole Atlantic coast, from Roscoff in Brittany to Hendaye on the Spanish border. The Canal des Deux Mers crosses the country from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean on canal towpaths, including the Canal du Midi, a UNESCO World Heritage site. La Scandibérique, the French section of EuroVelo 3, is the longest of them all at about 1,700 km.

Sources

We checked each climb against at least two published sources and give the classic Tour side.

• Wikipedia (English and French) articles for each climb, and for the Tour de France, the mountains classification, the Souvenir Henri Desgrange, the 2025 Tour and the 2026 Tour.
• Climb profiles from cyclingcols and cols-cyclisme.
• L'Étape du Tour for the 2026 Étape route.
• France Vélo Tourisme and EuroVelo for the long-distance cycle routes.
• OpenStreetMap for summit positions and the roads our routes follow.

Where to next?

• France cycling routes on TrailX
• Gravel riding for beginners
• How to read an elevation profile
• Driving the Alpine passes
• Get the TrailX app for offline maps