Beautiful passes In the Vosges Mountains

Here René Pottier defeated on 11 July 1905 the first pass of the Tour de France. The balloon d'Alsace then remained unrivaled for five years - until you discovered the much tougher passes in the Pyrenees.

At 1,247 meters, the pass is by far not the highest in the Vosges, and today nobody would put him in the list of important passes - but there is still a certain amount of magic about him.

The second highest of the Vosges mountains is at 1,363 meters at the same time the highest point to reach on asphalt point of the mountains. Although it is at the entrance only a short spur road that branches off from the famous route of the Crêtes. But the view from Hohneck is worth it.

When driving on this mountain in 1997 truly historic words in German racing cycling fell. At that time, the Grand Ballon was part of the Vosges stage, where this famous sentence was written:

Udo Bölts is said to have called his teammate Jan Ullrich when he was on the verge of snatching off his yellow jersey from rival Richard Virenque. Spurred on by his colleague, he finally managed it. The rest is history. Ullrich was the first and so far only German to ride the yellow jersey over the Champs-Elysées.

The Grand Ballon - in German "the big Belchen" - is with 1,424 meters the highest mountain of the Vosges. The summit is unfortunately not accessible by bike, as the pass bypasses the summit at 1,343 meters.

Although the Col de Fréland is rather unspectacular in terms of altitude, but he attracts with fantastic scenery and an almost car-free pleasure ride away from busy roads. It connects the Strengbach- with the Béhine valley and is alone scenic worth the detour.

This pass is my favorite in the Vosges mountains. In addition to its glorious past on the Tour, it has the advantage of being more isolated than an alpine pass and represents a nice cycling challenge.

The Champ du Feu has less to do with fire than one would expect: "Feu" in this case is the French corruption of the German word "cattle". Why the pass is so, you quickly realize. On a low-alpine plateau, cheerful cattle graze while one or two cyclists pedal up to the observation tower built in 1898.

At 1,216 meters, this is certainly the least known of all balloons in the Vosges. The ride goes through a quiet mountain landscape on unfortunately not perfect asphalt. But you have to share the road with hardly a car.