The other day, heading home from bike-only day at the fearsome Mont Colombis, I decided to break up the drive by stopping for a quick climb up to Col de Gleize. I admit it: this was a blatant attempt to pad my “col hunting” statistics. It was also a fun little ride.
I started at Col Bayard. I couldn’t bring myself to actually cycle up to Bayard: both sides are on a busy, fast National route, with trucks. It’s ride-able …. but not super fun.
Just a couple of hundred metres north of Col Bayard is the turn off for a nicely named road: “Route Touristique du Col de Gleize.” It’s a steep five kilometres to the col, a steady 10% most of the way.
The road is very quiet, the only traffic: a few hikers driving to the trail-head above.
The Hautes Alpes department is full of nice, quiet climbs. Just north of Col de Gleize is the spectacular Col du Noyer – details here.
At Col de Gleize is a small parking lot for the hikers and the paved road ends. But there is a gateway onto a good quality gravel forestry road that heads to two more Cols. It peaks at 1738 metres at Col du Milieu, then descends to Col de Chabanottes at 1664 metres – see map below.
The forestry road continues down to Chaudun (1313m) but I soon turned around. I was satisfied with three cols on this blatant col stealing second ride-of-the-day. 🙂
1 Comment
Magnifique ! Avec un peu de motivation il est aussi possible d’aller au col de Gleize en partant de Gap par une route qui se transforme en piste sur le haut, et qui ne doit pas avoir beaucoup de voitures.