Yes I have! Its my favorite climb in the world. The gravel is worse for most days than what you are seeing in the Giro where they work on it beforehand. It's just a stunning climb in every way. For me, I was so focused on not crashing on the gravel that I sort of ignored the grade. What you don't see is the bottom is a solid 9% the whole way steady before you even tough gravel.

That is cool...obviously the steady 9% on the tarmac before the gravel put everyone on the ropes, then the gravel made everything into a mountain bike race today. When you say you were concentrating on not crashing, I assume this was riding uphill or did you go up and down on the gravel side?

No we descended down and climbed up to Sestriere like they did today. The normal surface is not like what they rode today. There were large rocks, holes, piles of gravel in switchbacks etc. You have to be very careful about how you go in and out of switchbacks to not crash even going uphill.

Agreed. I actually road it on my CX bike because of this (with a pizza cassette). They do some serious work for races to make this flat and a lot better. Anyone know how exactly they do it? It looks like they take a road roller up it, but I can't imagine how that would work.

I have no idea how they flatten it for the stage but on Maua Kea, they have this grater that they use passed the visitor center at 9100 feet from where it goes gravel. it is impossible to do that climb on a road bike as your road wheels just sink into the lava dust/sand/gravel. They can't use a grator because it would me it even, but also very loose.

A couple years ago I was in the alps with some friends and on the night before our planned rest day we realized we were close enough that we could drop down to Susa and climb the Finestre, so we did. That was one hell of a rest day! It's a very steady 9% both before and after the gravel, and something like 19km? It's a totally epic climb. Those photos remind me of some of those old photos of the TdF from many decades ago (mainly because of the dirt).

Oh, you mean like Tourmalet from TdF 1963

Great pic that I'd never seen - thanks!

Anquetil was a stud; no two ways about it.