Classic Climbs Les Lacets de Montvernier

Not just one climb but two, as the majestic hairpins of Les Lacets de Montvernier lead straight onto the Col du Chaussy

- Words James Spender Photography Juan Trujillo Andrades

What a fantastic climb that the Tour de France has decided to include this year.

Les Montvernier, 17 corners, it took no less than six years to build. They started building it in 1928 and finished it in 1934.’

It's classic stuff from the late, great Paul Sherwen, part Tour de France Bible, the huge almanac given to teams and commentators that details everything from sign-on times to which order of monks lived in what abbey; part unfiltered and impassioned response to the pictures being beamed from Le Tour's helicopter.

As Romain Bardet stormed up the early slopes to an eventual stage win, countless viewers wondered why they'd never seen this climb before. The eagle-eyed will have watched a low-key debut at the Critérium du Dauphiné a few weeks prior, but for most fans Les Lacets de Montvernier had just been put on their map.

Hairpin central

Les Lacets de Montvernier happily exists as a standalone in the pantheon of great climbs, but ask local riders and they'll mention the Col du Chaussy in the same breath. One flows so seamlessly into the other that it's hard - churlish even - to separate them, which is why, unlike that Tour de France in 2015, this Classic Climb takes on both.

Echoing this sentiment is a little brown sign in the village of Pontamafrey that reads ‘col du Chaussy par Les Lacets’ - literally ‘the Chaussy pass via the laces’ - so, taking heed of its arrow, you pedal round a bend, through an open candy-striped barrier and onto the first of 18 hairpins. Hang about, 18 hairpins? Was Sherwen wrong?