France · Alps
Col d'Izoard
Famous for the Casse Déserte, a lunar landscape of eroded pinnacles near the summit. Coppi and Bobet duelled here in the 1950s.
- Length
- 19.0 km
- Avg gradient
- 5.9%
- Max gradient
- 12%
- Elevation gain
- 1,115 m
- Summit
- 2,360 m
- Hairpins
- 12
Versants
- From Briançon — 19.0 km at 5.9% (max 12%)
- From Guillestre — 31.5 km at 4.3% (max 11%)
History
The Col d'Izoard's reputation was built by the photographs: Fausto Coppi and Louison Bobet circling each other through the Casse Déserte in 1952, their jersey colours bright against the otherworldly pinnacles of eroded rock. That image, and that day, made the Izoard one of cycling's defining mountains, and the distinctive lunar landscape near the summit has never stopped being the reason riders and tourists remember it.
The climb itself is relatively gentle by Alpine standards — 19 km at under 6% from Briançon on the south — but the Casse Déserte, beginning around 2,100 m, makes the final section feel like riding on another planet. The rock formations are the remains of glacial erosion, and there's almost no vegetation: just bare stone, shale, and wind.
The Tour has visited the Izoard repeatedly since the 1950s, and though it no longer occupies the central role in the race that it held in the post-war era, the mountain has kept its mythic status among climbers — the view from the Casse Déserte alone draws riders who'd never race it professionally.