There is a difference between 'compared' and 'comparable'. The former could mean simply that somebody somewhere said, "Wow. This mountain is kind of like the Alpe d'Huez." This does not necesarily denote that they're actually similar, although it can. If the statement was, "The brasstown bald is/was compared to the Alpe d'Huez by Lance Armstrong.", then that would certainly suggest to me that they're similar in some ways. If it said, "The brasstown bald is/was compared to the alpe d'huez by some schmuck on bikeforums.net that has ridden neither", then you may infer that the similarities could simply be that they're two mountain stages in professional bike races. When using the word 'comparable', there's an implicit understanding that the two things being compared are somehow similar. Since they didn't use that word, and instead chose to use the passive voice and no comparative data to back it up, I'll assume that it was just a way for people not familar with the tour de georgia to identify this mountain stage.