The Muur van Geraardsbergen — the "Wall of Geraardsbergen," or Mur de Grammont in French — climbs barely 92 metres in its final push, yet it stands among the most storied ascents in cycling.
First used in the Tour of Flanders in 1950, the Muur became a fixture from 1970 onward, serving as the race's penultimate or final climb almost every year until its removal from the route in 2012. A short extension to the 18th-century Oudenberg chapel was added in 1981, giving the climb its full name: Muur-Kapelmuur.
The last hundred metres — cobbles, chapel, and a photographer's forest of long lenses — are among the most photographed stretches of road in the sport, evoking, as one writer put it, the imagery of a small Calvary.
The climb also opened the 2019 Tour de France as its first categorised ascent, and has featured in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the Eneco Tour, and the start of the Transcontinental ultra-endurance race. At its base, Geraardsbergen itself is a quiet Flemish town of roughly 33,000 — its own Manneken Pis statue, claimed as the country's oldest, standing a short walk from the foot of the wall.
