Just inside the top 25 of Europe’s highest mountain passes, the Col d’Izoard (2,360 m) is located in the French Hautes-Alpes department.
It is part of the “Route des Grand Alpes”, running over the part of the D902 between (north-east of) Barcelonnette and Briançon.
That part first goes up and down the Col de Vars, runs through the famous Gorges du Guil from Guillestre and then up and down the Izoard to end in Briançon.
The Col d’Izoard has been in Tour de France stages no less than 36 times, lately in 2019.
In 2017’s stage 20, the Izoard was the only time the stage actually finished on its summit.
While Warren Barguil won that stage, more memorable and perhaps more impressive, at least for me, was Annemiek van Vleuten’s win in La Course, the one day women event.
While Barguil was actually slower on the ascend than runner up Romain Bardet, van Vleuten was only beaten by a handfull of (other) guys, out of the entire TDF peloton.
