FAUSTIAN PACT

The ominous Colle Fauniera looms large over the brutal Granfondo La Fausto Coppi

Adrian Miles

Having grovelled my way up the Italian Alps’ Passo del Mortirolo, I thought I’d reached the outer limits of cycling climbs. But then I rode the Colle Fauniera in the second half of the Granfondo La Fausto Coppi and it redefined everything I thought I knew, delivering more anguish than the more celebrated col. Its numbers tell some of the story, but not all. Average gradients are blunt instruments when assessing the severity of long climbs, often misleading with long flatter sections or even descents. France’s Col de la Croix de Fer from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne is one such climb, with two descents artificially compressing its gradient to 5.5% – it won’t feel like 5.5 come its summit. Colle Fauniera is the same. An average gradient of 7.7% over 21.3km is tough enough,…

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Cycling Plus (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2025

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