Ranked: 14 beautiful cycling routes in France MONT DU CHAT | COL DE GRAND COLOMBIER

Tour de France legends or peaceful Provençal roads?
In this video, we compare the famous Tour de France climbs — like Mont du Chat and the Col du Grand Colombier — with lesser-known cycling routes through rural and scenic parts of Provence.

Are the iconic climbs really the best France has to offer, or can quieter corners beat the hype? We’ve ridden both and ranked 14 incredible French cycling routes based on challenge, beauty, atmosphere, and joy.

🚴‍♂️ Featured climbs:
• Mont du Chat
• Col de Grand Colombier
• Hidden Provence roads
• Rolling vineyards & lavender fields

Whether you’re a cycling purist or a scenic rider, this is a guide to France’s most beautiful rides—ranked from iconic to underrated.

this is something that I’ve become very used to seeing welcome back to the channel viewers we’re still in the van domestic Bliss well most of the time and we moved back further north to the Alps to enjoy just two more classic rides to share with you the cold du gr Colombia and the M Dua but not before we take a look at one more beautifully quiet ride for the sake of comparison at the beginning of these last few videos I mentioned that we would show you a few lesser known rides in provance and would be trying to decide whether these lovely quiet roads are actually better than some of the very popular TDE France climbs so here we go stick around and enjoy the riding so before we head back to the Alps let’s have a look around rural France once more we start from a village called Belmont Tramon and I call this ride the T de due to the very pretty churches we encountered on Route here’s a stra STS and you’ll see that this ride took us just over 3 [Music] hours a beautiful morning in front 3 4 miles into a 40 m route [Music] [Applause] [Music] bad Lu day what should I do [Music] [Applause] [Music] that’s a lot of churches this is 5 foot life let’s move on now training for Master Chef to another Alpine tour to France classic training I’m a pro after one in a beer that’s gone to her head this was one heck of a climb and we managed to do some of it twice welcome to the Misha and the Beautiful La [Music] du don’t miss an opportunity to take a swim in this beautiful Lake after busting Along on on this next climb let’s go after riding around the lake we leave the Charming town of B Dak and then grind our way up this consistently steep climb as you’re about to discover it was quite a tough one just just set off on the ride a laain and then cisha the lake section First full morning with the clouds starting to lift we promis 25° today going to be over there somewhere but it just hasn’t cleared yet to see the summit [Music] M shot 13 km this is mostly at [Music] 10% this is going to be interesting just setting off Cloud clearing on the hill starting to warm up a little further up the hill [Music] the lake just through there we just make out the Mast up in the Mist that’s where we’re headed the reach line up there [Music] there we [Music] go [Applause] mot sure that’s where we’re headed that M up there it’s just clearing all the [Music] Mist look the view of the leg there [Music] first kilometer down 7% next section it’s a brutal climb straight up hill out of the town and more brutal climbing up through the forest there a view just coming through there look at that after climbing brutally for over 4 km spectacular events took shall we say a more interesting turn sweeping bends when Dave realized that he had left his Rook sack containing food clothing and also the van keys in the Cafe we had just left and back in the trees quite a bit of gravel from the last couple of days heavy rain so down we went to retrieve it and back up we had to climb there’s our VI all over again on the way back up the hill again after uh discovered left the Rook sack at the cafe so I sue or I left the Rook sack didn’t left the one of us it’s either me or you 50/50 is it Rock behind I did I wasn’t cross really don’t ever me again but finally after much more puffing and panting than usual we gained the summit of M Dua with its colorful artwork and trust me the view of mon Blanc from The Summit Cafe is worth every bead of sweat reach the summit mha looking down on the the lake the B and Dak and over in the far distance is M blonc on the M Blanc range we just do you’re in there you go that’s M blong see all the way back out fantastic view from up here [Music] [Music] oh so what did you think of [Music] that I’ll leave you to decide which you think is the most appropriate response may not that maybe not that bit it’s what she [Music] said like laughing would have born us 3 km Le the didn’t [Music] we no real harm was inflicted during the making viewers and our route back to the lake was utterly Charming [Music] [Music] [Music] spe [Music] for our next ride we start from kulos also from the shores of the beautiful L du we put together a 30 odd mile circuit visiting the summit of the C Duan Colombia the climb itself is just under 18 km at an average gradient of 7.22% so let’s go we call the Grand Columbia yeah looming up there somewhere look at the view down there it’s stunning see where we were yesterday M cool in the bottom that and here we go around the hair pins many kilometers to go we headed on the last 1K to the [Applause] summit give you a little 180 there’s mon bon in the distance again so yesterday view are pretty awesome here 5 foot life going strong to the top still smiling like me [Music] smil remember the photographer on ph Nest photography wasn’t it we didn’t film The Descent due to the fact that our chosen route down was appallingly dangerous the very steep zigzags down through the forest were greasy and littered with Fallen rocks and stones we were both gripping on for dear life so I’ll leave it here whilst we risk our necks on that descent here follows a summary of our chosen routs over the last few weeks and whether we feel that the more popular T France climbs are worth the traffic compared to those love lovely quiet roads in provance Qui a [Music] storm but first let me thank you all for watching I hope you’ve enjoyed the riding the views and a bit of comic violence please do subscribe to the channel if you’re enjoying the videos laugh we’ll be back on foot soon so until then cheero okay so as promised here’s our ranking of the rides you’ve seen as complete over the last few weeks I’ve categorized them in terms of their popularity and therefore how busy we found the roads to be and how quiet the rides were with little or no traffic needless to say those marked popular comprise the classics whereas those marked quiet are usually but not always the Lesser known climbs at the top of the list for me are first C glandon and second CAD whilst popular the views were outstanding and the climes challenging in terms of gradient and distance next ranked third is Montu this is an absolute classic but I only include this when ridden with the gorge delesque otherwise it comes in at a disappointing 10 out of 14 due to the traffic and extensive Forest blocking the view for the first two-thirds of the ride in fourth fifth and sixth place respectively and I found it very difficult to separate these since they were all excellent are the beautiful quiet roads in provance fourth place called prer or called the pomerol fifth called the ran and sixth called the laou and called ey outstandingly smooth sweeping roads beautiful views and barely a car in sight throughout in seventh place comes the popular m Dua this was a challenging climb almost all in the red and the Summit View of mon Blanc is absolutely superb in eighth place I’m choosing called denoya another beautiful ride with stacks of hair pins rugged Cliff faces and a historic finish at Napoleon’s Refuge the downside was its popularity and the relatively short distance ninth is called the Grand Colombia a stunning Summit View of mon Blanc a popular route and an absolutely beautiful final kilometer however The Descent was truly awful unless you choose to descend by the route of ascent which I’m never Keen to do 10th as mentioned before comes the vontu when ridden from beduin through the forest in 11th place is called oron which we Road straight after the Alps Duz it’s a lovely quiet ride but short in distance and Easy in Ascent better to couple with Alps Duz as we did 12th Place is our de from Belmont Tron beautiful quiet roads but not terribly challenging with only one short climb to rock four 13th place is called the LA clas and Lany whilst hesy itself is absolutely gorgeous the ride around the lake is horribly overcrowded and bordering on dangerous with every bicycle shaped object you can imagine present the C laor claz is a fairly short Ascent which I didn’t get terribly excited about though we did ride this under cover of cloud which leaves in final place the iconic Alps Duz such a shame but we found this climb whilst challenging enough to be terribly busy we must have breathed in a scary amount of traffic fumes and couldn’t hear ourselves speak much of the time for traffic noise in addition the summit wasn’t particularly obvious so in conclusion it would seem for me anyway that the classics are not always the best I just loved the sweeping BS quiet roads and beautiful scenery of provance but I’d say that the classics are still well worth the effort despite being disappointed by Alps Duz Montu via Gorge delesque C de glandon and C deu were absolutely fantastic and I’d definitely ride them again this is the end of our cycling on the continent for now but please stay tuned for a bit more exploration in this beautiful part of the world bye for now