Betrayal, unbreakable records, and a four-second thriller: the greatest Alpe d'Huez ascents in Tour de France history

For more than 70 years, Alpe d'Huez has been an icon of the Tour de France. Its 21 hairpins - cycling's most famous switchbacks - snake up from the valley, climbing relentlessly toward the ski resort that spills from the summit. On any normal day, the road is wide and the bends are sweeping. But when the Tour takes over and hundreds of thousands of fans pack the slopes, that open road shrinks into a deafening, claustrophobic, smoke-filled corridor. "You have to just pray that everyone's going to move out of your way," said Tom Pidcock after he soloed to victory on the climb in 2022.

This year, in a curtain-closing double-header, the race will visit the summit twice: first via the traditional 21 hairpins on Friday's stage 19, and then from the east the following day, crossing the Col de Sarenne to finish on the final three bends. It is here that the yellow jersey will be decided, and another Tour legend could be written. Here are the stories of those who came before.

The first: Fausto Coppi, 1952

Though the first Tour was in 1903, it wasn't until 4 July 1952 that the race hosted its first true mountain-top finish: a 266km stage from Lausanne to Alpe d'Huez. Until then, the ski resort at the summit had stood deserted in the summer months. The hoteliers, tired of the tourist drought, had a whip round and paid to welcome the Tour.

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The stage that day was hot and long. It took the riders more than eight hours to reach the foot of the climb, where, slumped over their steel frames and with spare inner tubes wrapped around their necks, they began hauling their bikes skywards. With 6km to go, the 1949 champion Fausto Coppi dropped Frenchman Jean Robic - "I knew he was no longer there when I couldn't hear him breathing anymore," Coppi later said - and soloed to an historic stage win.

The victory earned Coppi the yellow jersey, which he would keep to win his second Tour title. The slow nature of the stage, however, failed to convince the organisers that mountain finishes were exciting, and the climb didn't feature again until 1976.

The most surprising: Lucho Herrera, 1984

Luis 'Lucho' Herrera wasn't supposed to win on Alpe d'Huez in 1984. A 23-year-old amateur cyclist and former plant delivery man from Colombia, he was making his Grand Tour debut with team Varta-Colombia, a national squad invited to make up the numbers.

All eyes were on the yellow jersey battle between Laurent Fignon and Bernard Hinault that summer. On Alpe d'Huez, Herrera took advantage of his under-the-radar status to attack with around 10km to go. He rode at his own rhythm, and ended up holding off Fignon by 49 seconds.

The victory was momentous: Herrera became South America's first Tour stage winner, and paved the way for a golden era of Colombian cycling. The following season, Varta-Colombia turned professional as Café de Colombia, and Herrera went on to climb to greater heights, winning the King of the Mountains classifications in all three Grand Tours, and the overall at the Vuelta a España in 1987.

The fiercest: Bernard Hinault v Greg LeMond, 1986

If the 1986 Tour is, as many believe, the race's greatest edition, then stage 18 to Alpe d'Huez - the duel between La Vie Claire team-mates Bernard Hinault and Greg LeMond - is perhaps its most dramatic single day.

That year, defending champion Hinault had promised to ride in the service of LeMond. The Frenchman, however, appeared to have a change of heart when he wore yellow for five days, and began eyeing his sixth title. Then, on stage 17, he lost three minutes, and the yellow jersey, to LeMond.

The scene the following day on Alpe d'Huez was one of bizarre tension. Having broken free as a duo, Hinault and LeMond rode through the hairpins shoulder-to-shoulder in what was supposed to depict team harmony, but instead laid bare the power struggle that had defined that edition of the Tour.

Team orders came for LeMond to cede the stage win to Hinault, which he duly did, on the expectation Hinault would stop attacking him. But fighting talk followed. "This Tour is not finished," Hinault told reporters at the summit. "If we have a war, it'll be a fair war and the stronger one will win." That rider ended up being LeMond. Hinault retired six weeks later.

The fastest: Marco Pantani, 1997

Still today, almost 30 years on, nobody has climbed Alpe d'Huez faster than Marco Pantani did in 1997. The full climb was measured in those days at 14.5km, which the Italian completed in 37 minutes and 35 seconds. Over the modern-day 13.8km route, his time was 36:55.

Pantani went on to finish third overall that year, before winning the race the following year, his trademark bandana wrapped around his head. Of course, history tells us that 'The Pirate' was a troubled character; although he never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs during his career, he excelled in an era when EPO plagued the peloton. His haematocrit level, the volume percentage of red blood cells in the blood, was so high that his veins were said to run with thick, red sludge. His resting heart rate was around 34bpm.

Pantani had died by the time anyone got close to his Alpe d'Huez record, succumbing to a cocaine addiction in February 2004, aged just 34. That summer, Lance Armstrong attacked Alpe d'Huez in a mountain time trial at the Tour. He won the stage (later revoked), but fell a second short of Pantani's benchmark. The fastest time recorded since the introduction of the biological passport in 2008 belongs to Nairo Quintana, who climbed the Alpe in 39:22 during the 2015 Tour de France.

The brightest: Geraint Thomas, 2018

In 32 appearances at the Tour, Alpe d'Huez has only ever seen one rider win on its slopes in the yellow jersey: Geraint Thomas. The Welshman began the 2018 edition as a lieutenant to the defending champion Chris Froome. But when Froome lost time on an early stage across the Roubaix cobbles, Team Sky gave Thomas the nod to see how far he could go. The answer, it turned out, was all the way.

On stage 11, Thomas climbed to a stage win in La Rosière and took hold of the yellow jersey. Then came Alpe d'Huez: could he hold off Tom Dumoulin, Romain Bardet and his once leader Froome?

Thomas and the GC group climbed as if attached by rope behind the pace set by 21-year-old Tour debutant Egan Bernal, who would win the race the following year. In the end, it came down to a shoot-out at the summit. Thomas launched first, slingshotted himself around the final bend, and won by two seconds. "Not a chance in hell did I think I was going to win today," he told the TV cameras post-race. "I just can't believe it. Alpe d'Huez, man."

The youngest: Tom Pidcock, 2022

It's funny, really, that the lasting image of Tom Pidcock's Tour debut wasn't his triumph on Alpe d'Huez, but his masterclass descent of the Col du Galibier from a few hours before. Still, such is the Olympic mountain bike champion's skillset that he is capable of stunning twice in one afternoon.

The then-22-year-old must have sensed that day was one for the breakaway. With 125km to go, he tore down the Galibier like a swooping falcon to join Chris Froome's group up the road. Barely two kilometres into the bottom of the Alpe, he left his fellow escapees behind. All that remained was to navigate the mass of the crowds. "At times it just seemed like there was no road in front of me," he later told Cycling Weekly. "Then suddenly people would move and I could ride through."

Prior to Pidcock's win, 23-year-old Lucho Herrera had gone 38 years as the youngest rider to win on Alpe d'Huez. That accolade now belongs to the Briton.

The closest: Kasia Niewiadoma, 2024

Kasia Niewiadoma didn't win the stage on Alpe d'Huez at the 2024 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. And yet, it's her name that became synonymous with the climb that summer.

The Polish rider led the reigning champion Demi Vollering by 75 seconds going into the final day. That gap, however, soon began to fall on the road, as Vollering broke clear on the Col du Glandon and barrelled towards Alpe d'Huez with the breakaway. Faltering behind, Niewiadoma chased as hard as she could. Could she manage to hold on?

The clock began to tick the moment Vollering lurched beyond Pauliena Rooijakkers to win the stage. Vollering then sat on the ground and watched. Thirty seconds passed. A minute. Until, with only four seconds to spare, Niewiadoma came sprinting across the line and collapsed.

It is, still today, the smallest winning margin in the history of both the men's and women's Tours. Had Niewiadoma eased off for only a few pedal strokes, she would have lost her yellow jersey. "It's so mind-blowing," she said afterwards. "I hated everything [up until] arriving at the finish line and learning that I won the Tour de France - it's insane."

ALPE D'HUEZ IN NUMBERS

Distance: 13.8km
Altitude: 1,850m
Elevation gain: 1,120m
Average gradient: 8.1%
Max gradient: 13%
Hairpins: 21
Tour appearances: 32 (34 after this year)
Fastest ascent: 37:35 (Marco Pantani, 1997, on the 14.5km route)

This feature was originally published in the 23 July 2026 print edition of Cycling Weekly magazine – available to buy on the newsstand every Thursday (UK only). Digital versions are available on Apple News and Readly. Subscriptions through Magazines Direct.