Sustained effort
Different approaches, same test
The Giau Pass (2,236m) is an alpine pass in the Dolomites, located in the province of Belluno between the Boite and Cordevole valleys, connecting Colle Santa Lucia and Selva di Cadore with Cortina d’Ampezzo.
The Giau doesn’t earn a high ranking in the list of highest (paved) passes in Europe, but the climb from Selva di Cadore is a tough one.
Why ride Passo Giau
Because Giau gives you two different climbs on the same mountain — and both feel like a proper test.
From the Selva di Cadore side, it’s immediate and uncompromising. The road tilts up and simply stays there: a steady ~10% for almost the entire ascent, with no real variation and nowhere to recover. It’s the kind of climb that forces a rhythm early and makes you hold it all the way to the summit.
From Cortina, it takes a different approach. The climb is longer and more varied — it builds rather than hits you straight away. There’s a sense of progression: out of town, through forest, a brief reset, and then the final stretch where the gradients settle into something much closer to the same steady effort.
Whichever side you ride, the defining feature is the same: this is a climb that doesn’t really let go once it gets hold of you.
What elevates it beyond just another hard ascent is how the landscape develops with that effort. Lower down, you’re climbing through trees and enclosed terrain. Higher up, everything opens: wide pastures, long sightlines, and a full 360° Dolomites panorama at the summit.
That shift — from contained to exposed — is what makes the climb feel complete.
Giau is not a connector pass and you don’t ride it by accident.
It works best when:
- you’re building a harder day outside the Sella loop
- you want a climb that feels more serious and less touristic
- you’re looking for a clear “headline” effort on a ride
It also pairs well with:
- Falzarego / Valparola (for a full, varied day)
- a Cortina-based loop
Giro d’Italia
The Giau has only been included in a Giro d’Italia stage 11 times since 1973, lastly in 2026, and it has been the Cima Coppi four times.
Since 1988, the Giau is also part of the long version of the Maratona dles Dolomites, the “Percorsa Maratona”. I managed to ride that by myself, as it’s near impossible and expensive to get an entry to the official event, during my Giro d’Italia of 2020.
Besides, the event was cancelled in 2020, due to Covid-19…
Caprile
The total for the Giau from Caprile is 15.6 km at 7.9%, but from Selva di Cadore the climb is 9.2 kilometers at 9.8%.
The Maratona gets up and down the Colle di Sante Lucia from Cernadoi to Selva di Cadore.
I did that stretch twice: in 2011’s stage 1 and during my Giro d’Italia 2020‘s Stage 6, when it was scorching hot in Arabba until halfway up the Giau.
Cortina d’Ampezzo
This ascent is almost 16 kilometers at 6.5%. However, from Pocol and after the short descent there, the climb is 8.6 kilometers at an average of 8.3%.
I did this end once, in 2015, when I climbed a completely deserted Giau in the freezing rain, with a brisk wind in the upper half as an added bonus.
During this trip, I could only guess at the views and I had no view to speak of at the summit. In fact, I was so wet to the bone and feeling frozen, that I didn’t even descend the Giau that day…
Video of the descent to Pocol from my Maratona 2020:
Background picture: kallerna, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
