Lawala

Lawala cycling climb profile

Lawala is an HC climb in Bhutan that earns the label through simple arithmetic: 13.2 km at an average gradient of 10.06%, starting at 2014 m and finishing at 3345 m. That combination makes it a climb where the average is already hard enough to dictate the whole ride. This is not a route where the headline number is inflated by one savage wall. The road gains 1331 m from start to summit, so the effort is sustained from the bottom.

What it feels like to ride

The defining feature of Lawala is pressure. A climb averaging 10.06% over 13.2 km gives very little room to hide, and the maximum gradient of 19.67% means the steepest moments are not just uncomfortable - they can force a complete change in cadence if you arrive overgeared or already above threshold.

The available profile data does not give kilometer-by-kilometer splits, so the right way to read Lawala is from the macro shape: a long, high-gradient ascent where any easier ground is mathematically offset by harder ramps elsewhere. On a climb like this, riders who pace by feel often go too hard early because the opening gradient will already feel like the main event. The problem is that the same basic demand continues for more than 13 km.

How to pace it

Treat Lawala as a controlled threshold climb, not a sequence of attacks against the slope. The average gradient is high enough that power spikes will happen naturally whenever the road kicks up toward the maximum of 19.67%. The goal is not to eliminate those spikes - that is unrealistic - but to keep them short enough that they do not flood the rest of the climb.

If you pace with power, anchor the opening section below your sustainable climbing effort and let the steepest ramps pull you up toward threshold rather than above it. If you pace by heart rate, expect lag on the steep changes and avoid chasing an early number. By the time the effort has stabilized, the climb is already doing enough damage.

For riders using /glossary/ftp as a guide, this is the kind of ascent where discipline matters more than aggression. The summit at 3345 m also means the final part of the climb can feel less forgiving than the same gradient lower down, so saving a gear and a small reserve is not conservative - it is the fastest way to finish well.

Gearing notes

Bring climbing gears that let you stay seated on sustained double-digit gradients. The 19.67% maximum is the warning sign: even if that pitch is brief, it can turn a marginal setup into a grind. A compact or sub-compact chainset with a wide-range cassette is the practical choice for most riders.

The key is cadence control. On Lawala, the wrong gear does not just cost comfort. It changes the physiology of the effort, pushing you toward low-cadence torque work when the climb is already long enough and steep enough to punish inefficiency.