Swiss Alps

The Bond pass. From Realp the Furka rises in nine early hairpins and then runs long open ramps to 2,429 metres, the eastern anchor of the Big Three loop and a Tour de Suisse regular with 23 crossings. In 1964 the crew of Goldfinger brought an Aston Martin DB5 up here and filmed the most famous car chase in the franchise on these bends. Over the top waits the Rhône Glacier and the shuttered Hotel Belvédère on its impossible corner, the most photographed bend in Switzerland. The climb itself is steady seven percent work with the Urseren valley falling away behind you the whole way.

The longest sustained effort in the region and the strangest landscape. From Innertkirchen the Grimsel climbs for more than 26 kilometres into a granite world of hydroelectric dams and dark reservoir water, gaining over 1,500 metres to the col at 2,164. The final act stacks hairpins past the Grimselsee wall where the scenery turns lunar, all polished rock and turquoise. The Tour de Suisse has crossed it eleven times and finished on it once, in 2007. Ride it as the middle course of the Big Three loop or on its own for the full high-alpine immersion. Either way, pack a jacket for the far side.

The steeper, moodier way up the Susten. From Wassen the road threads eleven tunnels and galleries in its lower reaches, then opens into a vast serpentine amphitheatre below the Stein Glacier, holding seven and a half percent for the better part of 18 kilometres to the summit tunnel at 2,224 metres. Jean Robic led the race over the Susten in 1948 while reigning Tour de France champion, and Federico Bahamontes followed a decade later. As the first act of the clockwise Big Three loop it sets the tone for the whole day. Serious, beautiful and never gratuitous.

The highest pass road entirely inside Switzerland and the hardest sustained gradient of the canon. The Nufenen wastes no time, hitting 12 percent inside the first two kilometres out of Ulrichen and holding better than eight percent for nearly 14 km to the col at 2,478 metres. The road only opened in 1969, which makes it the youngest of the great passes, and the Tour de Suisse has already crossed it 19 times. The upper switchback stack looks back down the whole Goms valley with the Bernese giants across the void. This is the group's summit test. Ride it fresh.

The gentlest of the canon and the hinge of the whole region. Eight serpentines lift you out of Andermatt, then the road eases along the Oberalpsee to the col at 2,044 metres, where a lighthouse marks the source of the Rhine. The gradient rarely troubles six percent, which makes it the recovery-day pass, the espresso ride, the way east into Graubünden. Its race pedigree outranks its difficulty by a distance. The Tour de Suisse has crossed it 17 times, with Lucien Van Impe and Andy Hampsten among those first over.

Switzerland's classic race pass. The Klausen climbs out of the Reuss valley for 24 kilometres, finishing along an exposed ledge above the Schächental to the col at 1,948 metres. Gino Bartali led the Tour de Suisse over it in 1946 on the way to overall victory, and in 2008 the race ran a full mountain time trial up it, won by a 22 year old Roman Kreuziger who took the whole Tour that week. The speed history goes back further. The Klausenrennen hillclimb of the 1920s and 30s was the toughest motor race in Europe, 136 corners of it. The bike remains the best way to take them.

A private road through the biggest scenery in the Oberland. From Meiringen the climb passes the Rosenlaui gorge and then the barrier drops behind you. The upper road is closed to private cars, PostBus excepted, which leaves 16 kilometres at nearly eight percent almost entirely to bicycles. The final ramps pitch past 14 percent as the Wetterhorn fills the sky, and from the 1,962 metre crest the Eiger's north face stares straight back at you across the Grindelwald valley. The Tour de Suisse has crossed it just three times, special dispensation each time. Every database calls it the most scenic climb in Switzerland. They are right.