Col de la Cayolle
Some types of rides are especially tempting. One such
type is a loop ride, that cannot be made any shorter,
yet at the same time it's just "short" enough,
so that - with good effort - it can be completed in a
day. And that doesn't even mention the scenery, which
helps to make this an extremely popular cycling
destination.This is the highest point on such a ride. My
extremely small, informal personal poll also had the
result, that this is the favorite pass on this loop. For
the most part the route is located inside the Mercantour
National park, and as you might suspect, natural beauty
is the main attraction here.
During my traverse of this route during a week day in
early June, I saw more bicycles than cars on the
approaches to this pass. As far as the entire Cayolle -
Champs
-
Allos loop is
concerned, the riders mainly concerned with scenic
beauty seem to prefer the clockwise direction (Cayolle
first). The exception seems to be the contingent that is
worried about road conditions. They prefer to go up the
rough western side of
Col
des Champs, and descend on the wider good road. I
saw roughly the same number of cyclists in both
directions during my ride.
The pass marks the border between the Maritime Alps and
the Haute Provence Alps. It generally opens sometime in
May.
picture
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1.(00.0km,1133m)
START-END NORTH: Barcelonnette, bridge over Ubaye
2.(20.0km,1785m) bridge over Bachelard, just after
turnoff to Bayasse
3.(28.9km,2326m) TOP: Col de la Cayolle
4.(36.4km,1770m) Estenc
5.(43.5,km,1257m) Entraunes
6.(49.2km,1039m) START-END SOUTH: turnoff on right
goes to Col des Champs, profile continues straight
into Saint Martin d'Entraunes
7.(61.0km,796m) Guillaumes
8.(80.2km,547m) START-END SOUTH ALT: jct D902-N202
,west of Entrevaux
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Approaches
From North. When leaving
Barcelonnette heading north, and you haven't made up your
mind yet, what pass road to attack first, you don't have
much time to decide. Either it's Col
de Allos or Col de la Cayolle. Col de la Cayolle has a
longer, more gradual approach from this side than the other
option.
A narrow bumpy paved road follows a narrow
gorge, carved by the river Bachelard. In the early morning
deep shadows keep the bottom of the gorge and the road cold.
There are many narrow one-way sections and a few interesting
small bridges. The road gradually climbs to half height of
the canyon. By the time the road has reached Bayasse, you
are in a high valley surrounded by peaks. The road crosses
the Bachelard, and now now climbs out of the valley between
meadows and open forest to the pass, crossing two
picturesque stone bridges along the way. The approach and of
course the pass are inside the Mercantour National Park. The
summit is not commercially overdeveloped, as it might be
ouside of a National Park. In fact it's not commercially
developed at all. The high alpine meadow at the summit seems
to be a very popular hangout spot for cyclists.

summit of Col de Cayolle
From South. (described downwards) All
of the upper section down to Entraunes has a rough, bumpy
road surface. And still - I was the only one with a mountain
bike on the entire loop that day, and there must have been
hundreds of road bikes. The road descends into the upper
valley of the river Var. This river gets to sealevel in
record time, so to speak, so you might expect a strong
vertically falling landscape. And you would not be
disappointed. The fast descend is slowed only by the waves
of asphalt, the many serpentines, and two reasonably dark,
but short tunnels. Another thing that slowed me down was
stopping for the incredible far views of the peaks, and some
amazing water falls on the lower section. After passing
through the small stopover point of Estenc and then the
slightly larger village of Entraunes, the road
"normalizes". It takes on regular width, smooth
surface, and a correspondingly larger amount of automobile
traffic. The turnoff to Col de
Champs is a hard right, but it is well signed. The
profile follows the valley lower to its junction with the
river La Galarge and N202, between Annot and Puget-Theniers.

History
Like many of the passes close to the border
area of Italy and France, the origin of the road is
military reasons. What was a mule trail in the early 1900s
was built into a road between 1907 and 1914, prior to WW1.
This completed a road between Nice and the Ubaye Valley to
the north.
Cycling-Tour de France: This
pass was three times on the Tour de France route, during
times when rougher roads were more common. These are the
rider who were in the lead at the top of the pass: 1950:
Jean Robic (France), 1955: Charly Gaul (Luxembourg), 1973:
Vicente Lopez Carril (Spain).
Dayride with this point as highest
summit:
Col de la
Cayolle , Col d'Allos , Col
des Champs : St Anne la Conamine > Jausiers
> Barcelonnette > Col de la Cayolle > St Martin
d'Entraunes > Col des Champs > Colmars > Allos >
Col d'Allos > Barcelonnette > sp: 101.4 miles with
12210ft of climbing in 9:34hrs (VDO MC1.0 m4:12.6.5)
Notes: this is about 20 to 25 miles longer than the
normal loop ride over the three passes, because of an extra
out and back from St Anne.
The last pass ride with different start and
end points on this Extended
Tour is: Col
de Larche