Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)

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Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)

18th pictures

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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Do you want to experience something other than Provence or the Western Alps? We have a tip: the region south of Grenoble.

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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In the alleys of the small town of Mens.

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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Typical French weekly markets mainly offer local foods and specialties.

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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Time to get your pulse down before the next spectacle tickles your nerves.

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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A mountain world to marvel at.

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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When the extraordinary becomes the norm – street art in the Gorges de la Bourne.

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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One of the most beautiful stalactite caves in Europe is the Grotte de Choranche.

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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Evening light in Pont-en-Royans: better living with a view of the Bourne river.

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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Prominent limestone peaks in the climbing scene: Mont Aiguille (2,086 m).

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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Hardly known passes over 1,000 meters, zero traffic, maximum driving pleasure.

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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There is nothing left to get here.

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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This is not a route for the fearful.

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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Authentic France with almost no tourists.

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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The Vercors invites you to thrill to the max.

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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The colorful flowers are skilfully staged next to the rugged rocks.

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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The evening sun gives us an incredible panorama.

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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A beautiful and cozy village – perfect to recover from the hardships of the last few days.

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
Jo Deleker

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Fed up with nature. Dense green and crystal clear water await you here.

to travel

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)

Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)
The region south of Grenoble

Do you want to experience something other than Provence or the Western Alps? We have a tip: the region south of Grenoble. But be careful: the daring streets of the Vercors are only suitable for those with a head for heights.


Joachim Deleker

December 28, 2019

Provence, the Western Alps, Lake Geneva – what do these regions have in common? Millions of tourists make the pilgrimage here every year and can choose from dozens of travel guides for the destination. But what about the area between these tourist hotspots? South of Grenoble, in the Vercors and the Isère region? Not a single travel guide can be found in this country. Suspicious, right? Terra incognita, in the middle of Europe? Forgotten land, utter wasteland? Let’s just go there and have a look, saddle up the enduros and roast the 800 kilometers to the Olympic city of Grenoble.

Tight hairpin bends and a handful of fine curves

Search there for a long time and finally find the poorly signposted D 106, which leaves Grenoble through noble villa suburbs in the direction of Vercors. And immediately takes on the mountains, higher and higher, beyond the 1000 meter mark. The Vercors, a cold plateau, the winters often last well into May, only sparsely populated, but crossed by deep gorges that wild rivers have patiently nibbled into the soft limestone. Like the Gorges de la Bourne, there a narrow road was painstakingly carved through the rocks, with rustic tunnels and funny little walls on the precipice to the rushing river.


Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)


Jo Deleker

Right on the Route des Ecouges. A couple of tight hairpin bends, a handful of fine bends, then straight as a bolt and with a clear view through dense pine forest up to 1,069 meters. Hm, what should be exciting here? Wait a minute, you don’t yet know the dramaturgy of the Vercors mountain roads. Because it works like this: After a nice, but by no means adrenaline-inducing climb through the forest, you dive into a roughly timbered dark tunnel, it gets light again and the Vercors hammer hits you, unprepared and hard. Suddenly the world is a different one, an overkill of impressions only allows one reaction, emergency braking, gasping, you cannot believe what you are seeing now. The mountain has come to an end here, falling vertically as a white limestone wall into the nothing of the depths. And now the street sticks to this wall, garnished with further short tunnels, a barely knee-high wall symbolically protects against the deep fall. Uff, and you always thought that for such a spectacle you would have to go at least to the Himalayas? Forget it, the Vercors is enough for maximum thrill.

Pure thrill

Do our single cylinders tremble more than usual when restarting? Or is it the pilots after all? Abseil down to St. Gervais, a double cafe au lait is needed. On the Michelink map we discover a white lane, garnished with green stripes and red dots for a dangerous route. Tempting, let’s go. The Gorges du Nan. Same dramaturgy, first harmlessly through the forest uphill, a sharp bend to the left leads to a narrow and dark tunnel, and then again: wow! As if the program changes from Rosamunde Pilcher to a Hitchcock thriller in a second. A vertical white wall, deep down the green gorge and three quarters of the way up, this path hangs on the rock. Works of art of road construction, foolhardy hammered into the wall, the real nightmare of fearful RV drivers. Numerous deep abrasions on the rock show that many a pilot leaned a little too hard on the wall for fear of the final crash.


Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)


Jo Deleker

The photos are in the box, the D 22 calms down again, meandering completely harmlessly over a wide plateau, meadows with fat cows, pine trees with thick cones, tiny places with rustic, old walls like Le Fas or Presles. Time enough to get your pulse down before the narrow path with magnificent views of the karst mountains and valleys winds down to Pont-en-Royans. Not just like that, of course, it has to be at least a couple of rough tunnels and absurdly tight turns. We’re in the Vercors, after all. Pont-en-Royans is clearly behind its prime. The old and up to nine-story pastel-colored houses, which are grouped very photogenically above the pent-up Bourne, hide the slightly morbid charm along the main street. After 6 p.m. it’s really dead in here. The neighboring town of St. Jean is much livelier, without any tourist highlights, but far more cozy with its cafes, shops and patisseries. And there is also a great campsite.

Ascent to Combe Laval

At the end of the village, the D 76 starts the long climb to Combe Laval, the dramatic climax of the Vercors. Our enduro bikes roar uphill through a dark forest with an altitude of 800 meters. If things go stupid, like today, you plunge into nasty fog shortly before the top. View zero, feel-good factor zero, maximum frustration. Waiting in the damp cold. One hour. Then finally the mush clears, the wind tears holes in the opaque gray, the dramaturgy of a perfect thriller, an incomprehensible scene unfogs. First we discover the lush green valley of the Combe Laval 700 meters below, constricted by rock faces, almost vertical and pale as chalk. Almost looks like a Norwegian fjord that has lost its water.


Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)


Jo Deleker

Some crazy person came up with the absurd idea 120 years ago of building a road up here along this wall, sometimes in narrow tunnels, then floating freely above the nothingness of the deep. Just a kilometer, but what a kilometer! A hair-raising work of art. Chapeau! The Vercors plateau extends south of the Combe Laval, a gentle, green landscape with almost no people, perfect for relaxed motorcycle hiking. And if you need passes, please, here are a few fun copies: Col de la Bataille, Col de la Croix, Col de Lachau or the Col de Rousset, with its many perfect radii on the best tar at the weekend, it is the local biker magnet.

Perhaps the most beautiful city in the region

Beyond the Bataille, the plateau glides gently to the south of France, it already smells of Provence. Lavender fields, pastel colored stone houses and this wonderfully soft late summer light. Narrow paths meander through the dried up hills, in between a few small passes such as Cavalli, Croix or Bacchus, all of which are far from the upper league of passes, but are simply nice to drive. Especially since the traffic density tends towards zero on weekdays.


Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)


Jo Deleker

The Drôme, the border river of the Vercors, flows even further south. There is Die, perhaps the most beautiful city in the region with its great historical center. Manageable, cozy, authentic, lively – southern France like something out of a picture book. A place to feel good, a place to stay. Beautiful old houses line narrow streets, fat plane trees protect cafes, lush flowers splotch of color in front of ancient walls.

A region for explorers

But it is also the stepping stone to the east side of the Vercors, into the Isère department. It’s even quieter there, a rural region between Grenoble, Gap and the Vercors, travelers are at best on the two national roads in a hurry to the south or towards the Alps. Hardly anyone stays in places like Mens and La Mure, hardly anyone has eyes for the rugged limestone mountains of L’Obiou or Mt. Aiguille. Ever heard of the Col de l’Allimas? Or from the Col de Menee? Not? But then let’s go there, it’s worth it. Promised. Spectacle? Not here, rather rural idyll without the garish make-up of the tourist hotspots, pure France between the Alps and Provence. And that’s precisely why it’s a real land of discovery. We leave our tent at the Camping Municipal in Mens, an old town with character and without tourists, gondola all day long across almost traffic-free streets.


Motorcycle tour in Vercors (France)


Jo Deleker

First to the rugged rock of Mt. Aiguille with its vertical walls, along the mighty Montagne des Lans, white-gray limestone mountains well over 2,000 meters high, they look like a small version of the Dolomites. We don’t see a single car on the D 8, just a few of the racing cyclists omnipresent in France. Down in the valley, the turquoise Caribbean Lac du Drac, which collects the sediment-rich glacier waters of the Barre des Ecrins, is the most westerly 4000-meter peaks in the Alps and can be seen from here on a clear day. Like today, white peaks between white clouds. Tempting, as the legendary Col du Galibier climbs over the mountains on its north side. Well, we’ll stay here for two more days, I’m sure there are still one or the other pass, one or the other village, a cool stalactite cave or whatever to discover. Who knows, because without a guide this area becomes a land of self-discovery. In the middle of France.

additional Information

Do you fancy something new, unknown and at the same time spectacular? How about Vercors and Isère? Pure France, alternating between breathtaking streets and quiet country life.

Getting there: It’s about 800 kilometers from the Rhineland to Grenoble. The fastest way from there is via Luxembourg and further on French toll roads past Dijon and Lyon. If you are traveling from southern Germany, you will travel through the Swiss Alps via Geneva and Chambery to Grenoble in Vercors, for example to Pont-en-Royans (approx. 660 km from Stuttgart).

Travel time: In mid-May, winter should be through even in the Vercors. But you cannot rely on it. Even in midsummer this area is not overcrowded, there is always a free room or a place for a tent. It is particularly beautiful in September, still warm in summer, but not too hot, the tourists have disappeared, but campsites and guest houses are still open.

Motorcycling: A network of small and very small streets runs through the Vercors. Expressways and motorways bypass the region. The roads are often narrow and extremely curvy, the surfaces range from the finest tar with the best grip to rugged paths that have been patched a thousand times, where a comfortable and handy two-wheeler with long suspension travel is the best friend. The dark tunnels are not recommended for claustrophobics, nor are the hair-raising mountain roads of the Vercors for those with a head for heights.

Accommodation: Outside the high season, finding a room on the spur of the moment is usually not a problem. The offer is not particularly large, however, as the regions are not among the tourist hotspots in France. Most of the time, there are simple to medium-priced accommodations on offer, and there are also some very nicely located campsites.

Worth seeing: In addition to the landscape and the grandiose mountain roads, most of the places are worth seeing. The Choranche stalactite cave in the Gorges de la Bourne is particularly impressive. A 33 kilometer long labyrinth, a small part of which can be admired as part of a one-hour guided tour. It’s really worth it, because the Choranche is said to be one of the most beautiful stalactite caves in Europe.

literature & Cards: There is no special travel guide for the area. A lot of information is provided by Provence travel guides, which, however, do not include the Vercors or Isère. As usual in France, the best maps for the region come from Michelin. The very detailed sheets 332 and 333 on a scale of 1: 150,000 know almost all routes. The cards cost 4.50 euros on site, with the unnecessary cardboard envelope in Germany 7.50 euros.

Information on the Internet is available here, for example:

  • www.ladrometourisme.com/de/
  • www.parc-du-vercors.fr
  • www.france-voyage.com/de
  • www.vercors-drome.com/fr/info-routes/
  • www.visites-nature-vercors.com

Vercors area

Location: France, in the Isère and Drôme departments

Official language: French

Currency: Euro

Next bigger places: Valence, Grenoble, The

Expansion: about 30 x 40 km

Conclusion

The area south of Grenoble is a dizzying spot. The area inspires with sensational roads through steep rocks. If you are looking for an intense motorcycle experience, this is the right place for you.

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