My great friends Jens is visiting from Sweden. We are down in in the south French Alps to ride some of the wonderful and high climbs in the region. Col d’Allos is not a bad way to start.
A 3D video of the ride:
See this post for details of one of the best loops in the south French Alps: Col de la Cayolle, Col des Champs, and Col d’Allos. 120 kms, 3500m ascent, quiet, beautiful roads.
I love this climb. Beautiful cliff stretches, some hairpins, plenty of fantastic views. And a nice restaurant near the summit. We turned around at the summit, but details of the less spectacular, but still beautiful south side can be found in the above Cayolle/Champs/Allos link.
I don’t have much more to add, so I’ll just post some photos:


NB: To break up our trip south, we cycled a loop of Lac d’Annecy via Col de la Forclaz. Here’s a recent 2017 post that includes Forclaz.
Jens and I at Forclaz summit:

3 Comments
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I’ve done the north side and the south side twice in the last few days. Both are beautiful. North side is tough but beautiful for the entire stretch. Also did the loop with Cayolle and Champs. Thanks for the blog it really helped my research. I’m off to Alpe D’huez next to do Sabot, Sarenne and Oulles.
thx for note, Enjoy Oisans region. Your plan sounds great