Col de Pailhères - Ax les Thermes

From Flassan, it's a quiet and easy road with a nice view on the Mont Ventoux, before you reach the forest. The second climb starts 4 km outside Sault and takes 11,7 km with the first 7,7 km as the most difficult ones. This is the nicest side. The climb from Villes-sur-Auzon is not very nice since the road is large and more crowdy.

The Col de Pailhères is situated in Midi-Pyrenees and belongs to the Pyrenees . Starting from Ax les Thermes, the Col de Pailhères ascent is 18.6 km long. Over this distance, you climb 1281 heightmeters. The average percentage thus is 6.9 %.

Are you planning to climb the Col de Pailhères? Here, you find all the information to train to climb the Col de Pailhères successfully.

Look for other sides to climb the Col de Pailhères.

Story by Graham Taylor from , United Kingdom, submitted on 11/03/2008

Went over (by car) the day before TdF in 2005 and vowed to return to ride it. Spent first 4 days of 2006 holiday at Ax. Good start but others have commented gets very hard after ski station. The worst aspect is that there are very few places where you can rest if you need to as long spells without hairpins. Make sure you fill water bottle(s)at the spring near the ski station and have a good rest there if you are old like me. You can descend part of the other side to Mijanes where the restaurant is nearly always open before coming back up the fabulous hairpins on that side.

My personal climb rating:

Story by Rob Currall from London, United Kingdom, submitted on 23/07/2008

did this as part of a wider tour of the pyrenees. Started from Ax les thermes. first kilometres are fine, on a gently ascending road, but save your energy. Once in the forest the road is a kindish percentage. the hard part starts at the long straight past the ski station. Hardest part is once youre done with the hairpins, you can see the summit but it never seems to get much closer. the road is steep and unforgiving at this point. Overall a fairly difficult climb, as with many in the pyrenees it has a changing gradient. the descent to querigut is fun. If weather is good the views from the top are beautiful.

My personal climb rating:

Story by Thomas van der Vliet from Almere, Netherlands, submitted on 30/04/2007

The road rises from the city of Ax-les Thermes with a few bends. After this the road splits and youll have to choose between the Col du Chioula and the Col du Pailheres. The next part of the climb is not bad, altough there wont be any shade after 8 kilometers. The road then becomes wider and passes a ski-station. Now comes the hard part, a couple of very steep hairpin bends with a steep mile right afterwards. Since the mountain is quite high, the heat wont bother you on the last part to the top and that is helpful since it is the hardest part of the climb. My advice is to save your energy for the second part of the climb.

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