Le Tour des Grandes Alpes

A  four-day hors catégorie high mountain tour across the most legendary cols in the French Alps.

If you can tear your eyes away from the tarmac, where the names of the pros are painted in bold at every twist and switchback, you will enjoy mile after mile of magnificent scenery – from classic Alpine lakes and dark forests, to meadows of wild flowers and the jagged peaks of Les Aiguilles d’Arves.

Starting with the climb of Alp d’Huez and continuing across the legendary passes of the col Col du Galibier and Col d’Izord  and finishing with 195km run to the Mediterranean the ride is guided and supported to a professional level on the road. Accommodation is in comfortable hotels and one mountain refuge – all serving excellent regional food. Note: Groups are limited to 10 riders.

Thursday - Arrive into Lyon Airport

Arrive at lyon airport in the afternoon or evening. You will be met and driven in a private shuttle to Huez en Oisans: transfer time approx 2.5 hours. Unpack bikes and gather for dinner

Friday - Alpe d'Huez - 45km

After a relaxed breakfast and final bike check we descend to the foot of the valley for a welcome warm up on some flat roads before the climb to Alpe d’Huez.This 13.8 km climb – average gradient 7.9%, with sections of 14% – is almost as iconic of the Tour de France as the Yellow Jersey. Coppi won the stage when it was first included in 1952, after a legendary race with French rider, Jean Robic. It has been included in the Tour almost every year since 1976, and the 21 hairpin bends are named after the stage winners. The ascent is even timed – Marco Pantani holds the record: 37mins 35secs in 1997 – so you can measure yourself against the greats.

Saturday - Huez en Oisans to Valloires -114km

We depart Huez en Oisans, heading towards Col de la Croix de Fer (2067m). It can be hard to distinguish, in superlatives, between one Alpine pass and the next, but the road up to Col de la Croix de Fer takes some beating for beauty. There is a short diversion to take in Col du Glandon (1924m) before reaching the summit, where the likes of Gino Bartali, Fausto Coppi and Bernard Hainault have all summited in yellow. We head down and back up to the Col du Mollard (1638m), before a steep, technical descent to the historic, market town of St Jean de Maurienne. The day is not done, however: there is still the tough, 12km climb to reach the communication towers on Col du Télégraphe (1566m), before a brief descent to reach the overnight stop in the small ski-village, Valloires.

Sunday - Valloires to Vars -140km

After an early breakfast, we depart from Valloires and head 17.5 km up, to reach the ‘ceiling of the Tour’, the mighty Col du Galibier (2645m). The summit views are, naturally, superb. Henri Desgranges, the founder of the Tour, famously described all mountains as ‘pale and vulgar babies’ compared to Galibier. On the long, fast descent we pass the monument to Desgranges. We continue the descent to reach Col du Lauteret (2058m), on the geographical fault line between the northern Rhone-Alps and the Provence-Alps region.

There is a fine, open descent to Briançon before you begin one of the true giant climbs of the Tour de France – Col d’Izoard (20km). This hors catégorie climb is famed for the bleak, wind-chiselled rock stacks and scree slopes of the Casse Déserte at the top. On the summit – a notch in the rock above the forest of ancient oak and pine – stands a monument to the great Fausto Coppi. The campionissimo crossed the Izoard alone, in yellow, in 1949, and went on to win the Tour. The blistering descent – out of the Casse Déserte, through endless hairpins, across Alpine meadows and through a limestone gorge – spits you out at Guillestre. After coffee and a snack in the town square, there is one long, last climb, to the ski resort of Vars and the refuge, to end a massive day.

Monday - Vars to Nice -195km

From the refuge where you overnight, it’s a short skip to the summit of the Col de Vars. This is the Alps Maritime, and if you didn’t notice it on day three, for the sweat pouring off your face, you will smell the Mediterranean this morning: gneiss and pine trees give way to limestone and larch and the sun becomes hotter. The final climb of the whole ride may also be the prettiest – 32km through the limestone funnel of the Gorge de Bachelard and out on to the Col de la Cayolle in the heart of Mercantour National Park. All that remains is a 100km descent – in places, swift and edgy, and in others beside the dashing white water of the Vars River – to Nice. Note Option weather dependent to pass over the Col de La Bonette (2715m).

The guides will lead you to the hotel in Nice. Overnight here unless you have an evening flight back to the UK, in which case there will be time to shower, and pack before transferring to the airport for flights departing 9.00pm onwards.