CYCLING THE COLS (MOUNTAIN PASSES) OF EUROPE

Barry and Margaret Williamson

We climbed the following 70 cols (mountain passes) in the period 1995 to 2002.

We started in the French Alps one summer and used the motorhome as a base. Over a period of nearly 3 months we slowly made our way east, through France, Italy, Switzerland and into Austria, climbing 38 cols, totalling 145,000 feet (43,940 m). They included the great classics of the Alps (many feature in the Tour de France): Alpe d'Huez, Col d'Iseron, Col de la Madeleine, St Gotthard, Cormet de Roselend, Simplon, Great St Bernard, Stelvio, Timmelsjoch, Rettenbach Glacier and Grossglockner. The Stelvio Pass at 9,100 ft is the second highest mountain pass in Europe.

Later climbs in the Pyrenees, on the way back from a motorhome tour of Morocco, added to the total and we returned to the French Alps in the Autumn of 2001. We based ourselves in the valley of Barcelonette in the Alpes Maritimes, surrounded by 8 cols of over 7,000 feet (over 2,000 metres). Many of these passes were built by Napoleon when Italy, just over the mountains, was seen as a threat. We rode 5 of the cols including the ascent of the Col de la Bonette, Europe's highest at 9,250 ft (2,800 m).

The list is rounded off with more recent climbing in Greece, much of it in our favourite cycling area, the Greek Peloponnese (the southern part of the Greek mainland).

The total height actually climbed by bicycle was 261,184 ft (79,146 m), an average of 3,731 ft (1,131 m) per climb. The total height of all the cols was 466,100 ft or 16 times the height of Mount Everest!