4 epic European mountain climbs

How bad can a 1.3 kilometre climb be? Philippe Gilbert, the local Walloon hero, said that to one day conquer the Mur and win the Flèche Wallonne, the Belgian one-day race to which its folklore is inextricably linked, he would have to endure ‘two minutes of suffering’.

And therein lies the problem: what for Philippe Gilbert was two minutes of torture, for anyone not among the finest riders in the world might mean an agony of double or triple the duration – not to mention equal, if not more excruciating, pain.

‘The Tour of Flanders has the Muur, Amstel Gold has the Cauberg and Liège–Bastogne–Liège has La Redoute… but the Mur de Huy is by far the hardest of the lot,’ opined Claude Criquielion, winner of the first Flèche to finish atop the Mur, in 1983.

The road or wall’s significance, of course, far predates and transcends its sporting legend. Historically and still officially known as the Chemin des Chapelles or Chapel Way, the road soars out of the rue du Marché in Huy and towards Notre Dame de la Sarte, the last of seven chapels dotted up the hillside and supposedly the scene of a miracle in 1621. Pilgrims stop at all seven before ending their journey at Notre Dame. For cyclists, a glimpse of the church steeple heralds the imminent end of the climb and their deliverance.

An encyclopedia of Belgian cycling climbs published in 2004 rated the Mur only the country’s 34th hardest ascent, well adrift of the 4.6 kilometre, 6% Col d’Haussire in La Roche-en-Ardenne.

The Mur’s extreme and unorthodox proportions, though, render any such ranking system meaningless; while only 800 metres of its 1.3 kilometres are truly difficult, that stretch is steeper and more brutal than anything else in professional cycling. The Frenchman Laurent Jalabert, who triumphed twice on the Mur, reckoned that only the Mont Saint-Clair above Sète in the south of France (1.7 kilometres long, average 10%, maximum 24%) could compare or compete. Flèche Wallonne race director Christian Prudhomme called the Mur ‘the longest kilometre of the racing season’ and ‘basically a mountaineering competition’.