This article was produced in association with Vélo-Pluf! Project and supported by the Interreg Alcotra Italy-France 2021-2027 programme
Although its summit is a thousand metres lower than the highest Alpine peaks, Monviso is one of the most iconic mountains in Europe. The triangular summit that dominates the mountains of the Cottian Alps on the Italian-French border has earned it the title ‘The King of Stone,’ and it stands as an important symbol for the communities on both sides of the border, who regardless of nation states, feel part of a common Occitan culture.
In the valleys of Cuneo and in those of Queyras, Ubaye and Serre-Ponçon, there’s a passion for cycling, expressed by ritualistic ascension, a celebration that is renewed each spring, when the snow melts and the higher roads are reopened to traffic.
Since the early decades of the last century, both the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia have frequented this region, and thanks to the centuries-old osmosis between the valleys of Piedmont and the Hautes Alpes, crossings from one side of the mountain range to the other have become frequent in both Grand Tours, and very often they are decisive stages in the quest for pink or yellow jerseys.
Local governments on both sides of the border have been collaborating for some years now on a common calendar of road closures for motorised traffic, which, in the first 10 days of July, includes the six events of the Scalate Leggendarie nelle Terre del Monviso, and five of the Tournée des Grands Cols. Thanks to these events, thousands of cyclists have enjoyed high-altitude rides without the stress and risks usually involved when we’re forced to share the road with cars, motorcycles and heavy vehicles.
In the most progressive Alpine valleys, a transformation is underway. Traffic closures are gradually replacing old-fashioned competitions, with the completeness of the cycling experience being prioritised over the exasperation of competitive performance, and the desire to discover taking precedence over the feedback of the stopwatch.
During the climbs to Colle di Sampeyre, Pian del Re, Col d’Izoard and Col Agnel, the difficulty of the climbs were anaesthetised by the pleasure of riding in mountain territory that, despite living mainly on tourism, has managed to limit the impact of the modern world and preserve its own cultural identity.
The steep climb up to the peak of the Colle di Sampeyre – 2,284m – is a total immersion in the green forests of the Varaita Valley which, by virtue of its colouring, is also known as the Emerald Valley. And with the exception of a few pastures and some high mountain villages, this climb is a sequence of straights and hairpin bends through broadleaf and coniferous forests. Only in the last two kilometres does the vegetation thin out, offering a wide view of the summit of Monviso. A climb of discreet charm, it connects the Varaita and Maira valleys, widely considered to be one of the last truly wild areas in Western Europe.
In 2003, the Giro d’Italia’s only stage in the region took place in the opposite direction to my ascent. On the tortuous descent to Sampeyre, Marco Pantani fell and as a result of the time he lost, missed out on a top-10 finish in his final Corsa Rosa.
At the top, I let the bike roll along the ridge that leads to the Colle della Cavallina and then turn right into Serre, the capital of Elva. This village of just 77 inhabitants is home to a special treasure, the parish church of Santa Maria Assunta, which houses a fresco cycle, created in around 1493 by the Flemish painter Hans Clemer, depicting the life of the Virgin and Christ. Because of Clemer’s work, this small mountain church is known by many as the ‘Sistine Chapel of the Alps’.
There’s a popular saying that describes living here as ‘nine months of winter and three months of hell’. To survive, the inhabitants of Elva became experts at pelassier, wig making. Forced into inactivity from autumn to spring, in the coldest months of the year, the men of Elva roamed the Alps to collect human hair from donors that, once washed and gathered into braids, was made into wigs for European aristocrats.
After climbing up to Colle di Sampeyre and descending to the Cuneo plain, I arrive in Saluzzo, a town that has earned the nickname the ‘Siena of the North’ for the beauty of its churches and palaces. Equidistant from Turin and the border with France, Saluzzo was the capital of a powerful marquisate before being conquered, first by the French in 1548, and then by the House of Savoy 40 years later. The Castiglia of the marquis, the Palazzo Comunale with its civic tower, the Casa Cavassa and the church of San Giovanni are a distillation of Renaissance architecture. It’s impossible not to fall in love with them.
By bike, the only way to get up close with Monviso is to climb to the 2,020m of the Pian del Re. It’s in the Po Valley, where the eponymous river begins its long and winding 652-kilometre route to the Adriatic Sea. In 1991, when the Giro d’Italia arrived at Pian del Re for the first time, I was on the side of the road to see my idol: Laurent Fignon. That rainy day in June was a triumph for Tuscan cycling, Massimiliano Lelli won the stage and Franco Chioccioli took another important step towards conquering the maglia rosa that he would win that year. The following summer, Lelli almost repeated his feat at Pian del Re, but was narrowly beaten by Marco Giovannetti. Third place went to the absolute dominator of the 1992 Giro, Miguel Indurain, who wore the pink jersey from the third to the last stage.
Although the climb to Pian del Re has been overlooked by professional cycling over the last 30 years, the 20km that separates Paesana from the source of the Po continues to be one of the most popular routes for climbers in the area.
After a first half of the climb characterised by long straights and rather irregular gradients, once you reach Crissolo the climb changes. Long before the road reaches an altitude of 2,000m, the vegetation thins out, revealing a mountain of rugged beauty. The 3.5km after Pian della Regina are a sequence of highly panoramic hairpin bends culminating on the plateau that is one of the starting points for rock climbers who venture up to the 3,841m of Monviso.
The Buco di Viso is right on the French–Italian border. It was the first tunnel constructed in the Alps, and work began in 1479 by the Marquis of Saluzzo, Ludovico II, in agreement with the Count of Provence, Renato d’Angiò. They had a 75-metre tunnel built to facilitate trade from one side of the Alps to the other, thereby avoiding the passes controlled by the Savoys.
But the dialogue between the inhabitants of the Cuneo and Queyras valleys has been going on even longer than that. The Occitan language and culture have been and continue to be a strong glue that bonds identities on both sides of the Alps.
From the 14th to the 18th century, the République des Escartons developed in the Alpine territory of Briançonnais, Queyras and the Susa, Chisone and Varaita valleys, which maintained a strong political independence from the main centres of power on both sides of the Alps. It is no coincidence that the most common symbol of identity in these valleys is not the Italian or the French tricolour, but a red flag with the Cross of Toulouse in its centre.
The Col d’Izoard is the most iconic of the climbs in Queyras. Between 1922 and 2019, it was tackled 36 times by the Tour de France and seven times by the Giro d’Italia, entering the collective imagination of cycling fans everywhere, especially for the Casse Déserte, the lunar-like landscape on its southern side, a couple of kilometres from the top. In this sanctuary of nature and cycling, a monument commemorates the only two riders who managed to cross the Izoard first on three occasions: Fausto Coppi and Louison Bobet. The Campionissimo actually succeeded twice in the same year, in 1949. First, in the Cuneo-Pinerolo stage of the Giro, which was the scene of his legendary 192-kilometre solo breakaway, and then on the Cannes-Briançon stage of the Tour, with which he overturned the fortunes of a race that had seemed lost.
Every kilometre of the climb towards the 2,361m of the summit is marked by panels that, in addition to providing information on the gradient, mileage and altitude, remind those who are climbing just how closely our sport is linked to places like this.
What was my 10th climb to the Col d’Izoard began in Molines-en-Queyras. After a cautious descent on the wet asphalt, I found myself in front of the imposing Château-Queyras, a mediaeval fortification completed by the military engineer, the Marquis of Vauban. In the kilometres leading up to Arvieux, the climb is quite easy, but once you pass the town, a long straight begins and the gradients become progressively more challenging. As you leave behind the last houses, the hairpin bends into the pine forest begin. A downhill right curve suddenly reveals the barren, primordial beauty of the Casse Déserte. In the debris of the Pic Ouest, dolomite pinnacles rise. The contrast is powerful: one mountain in perpetual change, and another totally immutable. At the top, I produce my climber’s passport, created by the organisers of the Tournée des Grands Cols, and a stamp confirms my ascent.
The last section on French soil involves climbing the 2,744m Col Agnel. Here too, the starting point is Molines-en-Queyras. The sky is clear and the sun is warm, even in the early hours of the morning. After leaving town, you pass through the two typ- ically Occitan villages of Pierre Grosse and Fontgillarde, before you reach the 2,000m treeline, where the larch and Swiss pine forests, so common in Queyras, give way to mountain meadows where marmots are a constant presence.
I have been cycling in the Franco-Italian Alps for many years and nowhere else have I seen their little silhouettes so often, or heard so many of the whistles with which they communicate.
It has been a very long winter in the high mountains. Above 2,500m, there are still deposits of reddish snow, a trick of high-altitude winds that have brought Saharan sand all the way to the Alps.
The last 5km of the Agnel have an average gradient of 8.8 per cent, with a maximum of 12 per cent just before the Refuge Agnel. The summit is a lunar, stony landscape. At 2,744 metres, it’s the highest cross-border pass in Europe, and at the top, a stone monument marks the border between France and Italy.
The Monviso, in keeping with its regal rank, towers over the surrounding peaks: the Pic d’Asti and the Crête de la Taillante. The Agnel – or Agnello, if you prefer the Italian – has been included in the route of four editions of the Giro d’Italia (1994, 2000, 2007 and 2016) and in two of the Tour de France (2008 and 2011).
In the Giro 30 years ago, Marco Pantani created a gap on the difficult ramps of the Italian side to try to snatch the pink jersey from Evgeni Berzin, but the operation failed on the long climb to the Col du Lautaret. The stage proved decisive in 2016, when Michele Scarponi passed in the lead, but at the end of the steepest part of the descent, at the height of Château-Queyras, he stopped to wait for his captain, Vincenzo Nibali. Thanks to the generosity of his teammate, Nibali managed to win the stage with the finish in Risoul with a lead of 4:54 over the erstwhile leader Steven Kruijswijk, laying the foundations for another Giro triumph.
This territory straddling Italy and France is for road cycling what the Himalayas are for mountaineering. Within a radius of 55 kilometres as the crow flies, from the summit of Agnel, there is Sampeyre and Izoard, but also Fauniera, Lombarda, Bonette and Vars, all climbs of over 2,000m. And the pleasure you feel from conquering them is only part of the reward, the rest is derived from the richness of everything that you get to see from the top of those mountains.
