By Greg Keers on
01/10/2008
I am a bit of a Tour de France fan and so wanted to have cycled all the famous cols to experience it for myself. Not wanting to take years over it I looked into doing all the Alpine cols in as few days as possible. What I found out was that there route called La Route des Grandes Alpes which is promoted by the french tourist board: http://www.grande-traversee-alpes.com/je-voyage/par-la-route/la-route-des-grandes-alpes.html
It is recommended as an 8 day route and misses a couple of TdF classics like the Col de Joux Plane where Lance Armstrong was in all sorts of trouble in 2000. There is a complication in that the climbs of Alpe d'Huez and Col de la Croix de Fer are stuck out on a loop in the West so I decided to save those for another time. The standard route also missed the Col de la Bonette which was on the 2008 tour and as the highest road in Europe really had to be done.
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