The lake at 447 metres
Every Mareau leaves the workshop on the Route de Thônes and turns left. Four kilometres of flat along the water, then the road tilts and does not stop tilting for sixteen more.
- Bicycle
- Col 54
- All up
- 6.40 kg
- Departure
- 05.52
Scroll to climb
Where the climb starts
Twenty-four bladed spokes into a 38 mm rim. On a col you feel the wheel before you feel the frame — it is the only part of the bicycle that has to be light and true at the same time.
- Rim depth
- 38 mm
- Tyre
- 28 mm
- Wheelset
- 1,285 g
Seven hundred and eighty grams
T1000 and M40X, laid by hand over ninety-six hours and cured once. The down tube is oval at the shell and round at the head: stiff where you push, forgiving where the road is not.
- Frame
- 780 g
- Fork
- 336 g
- Lay-up
- T1000 / M40X
Fifty-two, thirty-six
A 52/36 with an 11–30 behind it. Nobody here has ever recommended a bigger gear for the Aravis. Three of us have recommended a smaller one.
- Chainrings
- 52 / 36
- Cassette
- 11–30
- Groupset
- Dura-Ace Di2
Two centimetres either way
The bar is 400 mm and the stem 100. We measure it in Annecy on a Tuesday, then change it once — in the second week, after you have actually ridden it.
- Bar
- 400 mm
- Stem
- 100 mm
- Drop
- 128 mm
Sixteen kilometres at 6.1 %
The sign is at the top, the crêperie is beside it, and the descent to La Clusaz takes eleven minutes if you are honest about it. The Col, from €8,900.
- Altitude
- 1,486 m
- Length
- 16.1 km
- Average
- 6.1 %
Two framesMareau builds exactly two bicycles1,486 m
One goes up.
One goes fast.
The one we build most. Round tubes, a 780-gram frame and a 408 mm chainstay — a bicycle that disappears under you at eight per cent and still tracks a wet descent.
780 gFrame
6.40 kgAll up
€8,900From
RoundTubes
The Col was the first frame Céline laid up in the unit on the Route de Thônes, in a mould she machined herself. Twelve years later the shape has moved 4 mm at the head tube and nothing else. It is not the stiffest frame we can make. It is the one that is still comfortable on the fourth col of the day.
Truncated sections, a dropped seat stay and an integrated post. Quicker than the Col above 34 km/h and, on the flat between Annecy and Ugine, about ninety seconds quicker over twenty kilometres.
890 gFrame
7.10 kgAll up
€9,600From
KammtailTubes
FittingSix roomsTwo and a half hours
You cannot buy
one of these
in a shop.
Every Mareau is fitted before it is laid up. Two and a half hours on the jig with someone who rides, in one of six rooms. Your numbers go to Annecy the same evening and the frame is built to them — not selected to be near them.
Journal12 May 2025Aurélie Bonnet
Two hundred
hairpins
“The Tuesday group leaves at half past five in summer because by seven the Colombière is full of cars. I have ridden it two hundred and six times. The bicycle is not the reason I go up it, but it is the reason I am still going up it at forty-eight.”
Aurélie Bonnet · Annecy
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