Passo del Mortirolo cycling climb map

by Sidney van den Boogaard

An average of more than ten per cent, and not the kind that hides a few easy stretches: between kilometre 3 and kilometre 9 the Mortirolo from Mazzo di Valtellina rarely drops below ten or eleven per cent. The narrow road climbs mostly through forest, bend after bend, with few views to distract you and nowhere to recover. Around kilometre 8 stands the monument to Marco Pantani, the climber whose name is forever tied to this mountain. Only after some 1,300 metres of climbing does the road finally level out at the pass, high above the Valtellina. One for anyone who secretly thinks suffering is part of the fun.

This work is part of the Legendary Climbs collection: the most famous climbs in road cycling, from the Alps and the Pyrenees to the short, steep hills of Flanders and Limburg. Each climb is drawn from the real road, with the elevation profile coloured per kilometre and, along the bottom, the length, elevation gain, average and maximum gradient and the summit.

The road is drawn from OpenStreetMap data (© OpenStreetMap contributors) and the profile from Copernicus elevation data (EU-DEM). A great gift for any cyclist, to hang next to the bike or as a goal for next season.