France · Alps
Col du Galibier
One of the highest paved cols in the Alps. The Galibier towers over the Col du Lautaret and has been a decisive Tour de France battleground since 1911.
- Length
- 23.0 km
- Avg gradient
- 6.9%
- Max gradient
- 12%
- Elevation gain
- 1,580 m
- Summit
- 2,642 m
- Hairpins
- 14
Versants
- From Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne — 35.0 km at 5.5% (max 12%)
- From Col du Lautaret — 8.5 km at 6.9% (max 12%)
History
The Tour de France first crossed the Col du Galibier in 1911, on a brutal 366 km stage from Chamonix to Grenoble that also took in the Col du Télégraphe beforehand. Émile Georget was the first rider over the top — one of only three riders that day who managed the climb without walking, alongside Paul Duboc and Gustave Garrigou. No Tour rider had ever raced at that altitude before; race director Henri Desgrange had pushed for the Alps specifically because he wanted the race to go higher and harder than anyone thought reasonable, and the Galibier was the proof it could be done.
Desgrange is remembered on the mountain itself: a monument to him stands near the tunnel at the summit, and since 1947 the Souvenir Henri Desgrange has been awarded each Tour to the first rider over the race's highest point that year — often, though not always, the Galibier.
More than a century after that first crossing, it remains one of the Tour's genuine high-altitude tests, usually paired with the Télégraphe or the Col du Lautaret in the modern route, exactly as it was the first time.