In the 2012 Tour de France, La Planche de Belle Filles was used for the very first time. It was the summit finish of stage 7. The climb has an average gradient of 14% but the last 350m of the climb has a gradient of 20%!
Cadel Evans attacked coming around the final corner to the steep section but Chris Froome found something special to come around Cadel Evans and Bradley Wiggins to take the stage win while Bradley Wiggins took the yellow jersey and won the Tour overall in 2012.
The climb was used again 2 years later on stage 10, as a summit finish, in the 2014 Tour de France. 6 climbs had to be tackled on that stage. The Tour was won by Vincenzo Nibali, who finished 4th on this climb in 2012.
The 2020 Tour de France used La Planche de Belle Filles as the stage 20 individual time trial summit finish. Tadej Pogar of Team UAE Emirates had the time trial of his life to not only take back the deficit to the yellow jersey of Jumbo Visma's Primoz Roglic but he also managed to take over 50 seconds to claim the yellow jersey on the eve of the Paris finnish.
For the 2022 Tour de France for both men and women's races the climb became La Super Planche des Belles Filles due to an extra 1km gravel surface section being added to the ascent.
Country: FRANCE
Mountain range location: Vosges
Map co-ordinates start:
Map co-ordinates finish
Distance: 4.5 km
Elev Gain: 390 m
Avg Grade: 8.6 %
Max Grade: 21 %
Climb cat: 2
Suggested Airport: EuroAirport Basel Mulhouse Freiburg
Suggested Train Station: Gare de Mulhouse
