Lacets de Montvernier / Col de Chaussy

A relative newcomer to the sport, the Lacets de Montvernier lay dormant at the side of the A43 Autoroute in terms of cycling appearances until the 2015 Tour de France (and also Dauphine) when it burst onto the stage and was one of the most talked about climbs in that year’s Tour despite being only 2.5 km long and only an average 8% gradient. Its star appeal? 17 hairpin bends packed in every 150 m which gives it the appearance of a scalextric track from above (the term “lacets” also means shoelace in French). During the stage, fans were excluded from spectating on the actual climb and race vehicles were diverted onto another route due to the fear of potential gridlock on its extremely narrow road. Romain Bardet gave France the win that day and the climb was included again in last years the Tour de France. The “Lacets” is now on many people’s bucket list of climbs to ride in the Alps and is the perfect warm-up climb to the Col du Chaussy which it feeds into and the more difficult Col de la Madeleine.

Col de Chaussy: 1533 m
Length of ascent: 13.6 km
Meters in height: 999 m
Ascent (average): 7%
Ascent (max): 14%
Strava Segment: strava.com
Strava KOM: 38:33 min
Strava QOM: 52:18 min