Cafés at the foot of the climb
32 on the map · 0 more worldwide ·
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Every famous climb grows a café at each end, and they are completely different places. The one at the bottom is where the group forms, where you drink the coffee you will regret at kilometre eight and wait for the last person to finish faffing with a shoe. The one at the top is where you sit down having earned something, and where nobody minds what it costs.
In Mallorca that pair is Sa Ruta Verda down in Caimari and the Garage Café up on the Coll de sa Batalla. In Tucson it is Le Buzz at the foot of the Catalina Highway and the Cookie Cabin, eighteen hundred metres higher in Summerhaven, selling cookies the size of a dinner plate.
On the map
- 't Juiste VerzetA cycling café built into a farmhouse on the Oude Kwaremont, run for over two decades by Annie Vermeulen.
- Ca'n TopaCa'n Topa is a mountain café-bar-restaurant on the Coll de Sóller pass above Bunyola, in a building dating to 1880, run by Paula and Damian.
- Café BoutiqueCafé Boutique is a cyclists' bar at the foot of the Kemmelberg, run by former amateur racer Pieter and home to the local cycling club De Vlammers.
- Café d'Oude HoeveAn authentic mid-19th-century café on the Ronde van Vlaanderenstraat in Kwaremont, close to the top of the Oude Kwaremont climb on the Tour of Flanders course.
Cappella di San Giovanni GualbertoThis wooden chapel at Passo Giau, built in 1968, is dedicated to San Giovanni Gualberto, the eleventh-century founder of the Vallombrosan Benedictine order a…- Chalet ReynardThe only reliable food and water stop on Mont Ventoux's Bédoin ascent, at the junction where the road from Sault joins six kilometres below the summit, right…
- Cycling HubA cycling café, bike shop and training centre a few hundred metres from the Muur van Geraardsbergen, opened in 2024 by four cycling enthusiasts.
el MontEl Mont rises to 1,125 metres, the highest point of the eastern Alta Garrotxa on the Alt Empordà-Garrotxa border.- Es Coll de sa Batalla (Garage Café)The Repsol café atop Coll de sa Batalla, a long-time cyclist gathering point and one of two main gateways into the Serra de Tramuntana from Caimari.
- Es GuixA stone terrace beside the road up Coll de sa Batalla, serving traditional Mallorcan food since 1970 beside a spring-fed pool built out over bare rock.
- Es VergerEs Verger is a restaurant on the mountain road above Alaró in Mallorca's Serra de Tramuntana, below Castell d'Alaró.
- Flandrien Hotel ClubhouseThe Clubhouse is the social heart of Flandrien Hotel, a boutique cycling-themed hotel in the Flemish Ardennes near Brakel.
- FontanéFontané is the restaurant at the Roca brothers' Esperit Roca hotel, set on the upper floor of the old fort atop Sants Metges hill above Sant Julià de Ramis.
Jouf de Pordoi - Passo Pordoi - PordoijochPasso Pordoi tops out at 2,239 m between the Sella and Marmolada groups, linking Canazei with Arabba on a road built in 1904 as part of the Great Dolomites R…
Ju de Frara - Grödner Joch - Passo GardenaPasso Gardena crests at 2,121 m between Val Gardena and Val Badia, framed by the Sella group to the south and the Cir peaks to the north.
KemmelbergKemmelberg is the highest point in West Flanders at 154 metres, and its cobbled climb through the woods above Kemmel village has become the showpiece of Gent…- La CalobraRestaurante La Calobra is the only building at the foot of Antonio Parietti's Ma-2141, the dead-end road opened in 1933 that switchbacks down the Serra de Tr…
- Le Buzz CaféLe Buzz Caffe is a breakfast-and-lunch café with a full espresso bar that has served Tucson since 1996, roasting its own coffee and baking its own pastries i…
- Mirador de ses BarquesOne of the best views in the Tramuntana: the terrace drops straight down the Sóller valley to Port de Sóller and the mountains ringing it.
- Mt. Lemmon Cookie CabinMt.
Oude KwaremontThis 2.2-kilometre cobbled climb is the longest in the Tour of Flanders, gaining 92 metres at an average 4 percent but pitching to 11.6 percent partway up.
Passo CampolongoPasso Campolongo links Corvara in Val Badia with Arabba, the lowest of the four Sellaronda passes but no less demanding at up to 13 switchbacks.
Passo FalzaregoPasso Falzarego, at 2,105 metres, connects Cortina d'Ampezzo with the Cordevole valley along the Great Dolomites Road.
Passo FedaiaPasso Fedaia at 2057 metres runs along the north shore of Lago di Fedaia, an artificial reservoir dammed in 1956 and fed by the Marmolada glacier above it.
Passo RolleCimon della Pala spikes above the road and gets called the Matterhorn of the Dolomites, though Vezzana, hidden just behind it, is the higher summit of the gr…
Passo San PellegrinoThe two summits flanking the road once faced each other across a front line: Austrians on Cima Uomo to the north, Italian trenches on Col Margherita to the s…
Passo Tre Croci - Son ZuógoPasso Tre Croci, at 1809 m in the Ampezzo Dolomites, takes its name from a February 1789 tragedy: a mother and her two children died of exposure near the pas…- Posada JavaPosada Java is a coffee shop at The Shoppes at La Posada, run by La Posada at Green Valley as the area's social hub.
RaspaillebosRaspaillebos is a 50-hectare forest reserve on the slopes of the Bosberg in the Flemish Ardennes, protected as a landscape since 1980 and recognized as a Nat…- Restaurante Ruta del VeletaRestaurante Ruta del Veleta is a restaurant in Cenes de la Vega listed in the Michelin Guide, on the road that climbs toward Sierra Nevada.
- Sa Ruta VerdaOne of Mallorca's original cycling cafes, sat right where the road to Coll de sa Batalla and Sa Calobra begins to climb.
- Santuari dels ÀngelsThe Santuari dels Àngels is a hilltop sanctuary and restaurant at 484 metres in the Gavarres massif near Girona, reached by a road popular with cyclists and …