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Region: French Alps
Climbing effort: 816 cep
Elevation meters: 1033
Steepest kilometer: 9.8%

Steepest 250 m: 11%
Foot: 500 m    Top: 1533 m
Mean slope: 7.5%
Length: 13.7 km

From: Pontamafrey
Road conditions (2025): average
Other race bikers: 1-5 per hour
Motor vehicles: <10 per hour
Scenery and road: (3/5)
Restaurant or bar near top: yes

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Other climbs French Alps

The Col du Chaussy is one of those small passes, typical for France, that connect only a few villages on either side of the pass. As a result, there is hardly any traffic on the road, which makes the climb a real pleasure for cyclists. As an additional plus, there is a terrace at the pass. When cycling up from the south, there are two options, whose roads merge in the village of Montvernier after about 275 metres of elevation gain. From there, the road winds further up towards the pass, mostly with a gradient between 6 and 9%, and often through the forest. Only in the last kilometre and a half (from Montpascal onwards) does the landscape open up while the previously rather wide road become narrower.

If Pontamafrey is chosen as the starting point for the first part of the ascent (the so-called southern approach), the route to Montvernier is spectacular and famous. The road climbs up a very steep mountainside by making 17 sharp hairpin bends. This passage is called Lacets (French for shoelaces) de Montvernier. The stretches between the bends run almost parallel, so that the distance between the first and the last of the seventeen hairpin bends measures only about 250 meters horizontally. It is a pity that when climbing one can only ever see a small part of these “Lacets” at one time!