From Alpe d'Huez, the route used on the Tour de France follows an unnamed road initially, descending to 1,765 m (5,791 ft) before the final climb to the summit which is 3 km (1.9 mi) long at an average gradient of 7.8%.[1]
From the south, the road to the pass follows the D25 from its junction with the D1091 to the east of Le Freney-d'Oisans. From here, the road is 12.8 km (8.0 mi) km long, climbing 954 m (3,130 ft) at an average of 7.5%, although the first kilometre to Mizoën has a gradient of 11.5% and the maximum gradient is 13.5% at 3 km (1.9 mi) from the summit.[2]
The passage over the summit was used in the 2013 Tour de France; following that race, German rider Tony Martin criticized the decision of the Tour de France organisers to use the pass, saying: "The road is old and narrow. It’s a bad road, no guardrails. A mistake could see you falling straight down 30 metres. It's irresponsible to send us there."[3] Martin repeated his criticisms on the eve of the Tour de France: It’s still the same descent. … It’s quite nasty and a really dangerous descent. We’ve made a lot of comments already in the media, so I really hope the organization heard it.[4]
In the race, the summit was crossed first by a group of four riders, led by Tejay van Garderen. On the descent, van Garderen had a technical problem with his bike, and Christophe Riblon left the road on a corner before going on to win the stage at the top of Alpe d'Huez.[5]