CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A one-way ride of 98 km, Heggenes to Vågåmo - roughly 1 h 39 in the saddle. On the way it passes Valdresflye and Gjende. The highest point is about 1,500 m. Valdresflye is subject to seasonal closure - check it is open before you set off. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
The ride follows Norwegian Scenic Route Valdresflye for 19 km.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
The ride follows Norwegian Scenic Route Valdresflye for 17 km.
Garli is a remote spot on the Valdresflye, the high plateau road between Valdres and Gudbrandsdalen, and it sits in a landscape of bare mountain, lake and marsh at about 1,000 metres. The Valdresflye is a National Tourist Route, and the road crosses the plateau through the Jotunheimen and Jotunheimen-adjacent country, with views of the great peaks to the north, including the Besseggen ridge and the Gjende lake. The road was built in the 1930s as a tourist route, and it is surprisingly smooth, with long gentle curves and a clear sense of space. Fagernes, over thirty kilometres away, is the nearest town, with fuel and services.
Read the complete Garli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Garli is where the day begins. Next is Valdresflye.
At 1,389 metres the Valdresflye is the roof of Fv51, a broad shoulder of bare mountain between Valdres and the Jotunheimen range, and the nearest thing southern Norway has to a lunar landscape. Nothing grows taller than your ankle. The ground is stone, lichen and cushions of moss, scattered with boulders left by the ice, and small lakes lie in the hollows, still holding snow at their edges well into summer. To the north rise the big peaks of Jotunheimen, the highest mountains in northern Europe, with Galdhøpiggen above 2,400 metres, and the line of them against the sky changes with every kilometre.
Read the complete Valdresflye write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Valdresflye comes up about 19 km into the recorded legs. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Gjende, mostly downhill.
Gjende is a long, narrow lake in the heart of Jotunheimen, lying at about 984 metres between steep ridges, and it is famous for its colour. The water is a vivid green, almost milky, because it carries rock flour ground fine by glaciers upstream, and in sunlight it glows like a cut gemstone. Standing at the shore at Gjendesheim, where the road ends and the paths begin, you look down the lake between steep slopes, with the dark outline of the ridge rising on one side.
Read the complete Gjende write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 36 km into the recorded legs you reach Gjende. Next is Vagamo.
Vågåmo is a village in the Gudbrandsdalen valley, in the middle of Norway's mountain heartland, and it sits beside the river Otta, with the Jotunheimen range to the west. The village has about fifteen hundred people, a church, a school, shops and a fuel station, and it is the place where the Valdresflye road comes down to meet the main valley. The Vågåvatnet lake lies just beside the village, and the farms stretch in lines along the hillsides. The name is thought to derive from an old word for a bay or inlet, and the lake was once much larger.
Read the complete Vågåmo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vagamo closes the day.
Garli → Valdresflye is 19 km. This is the part worth slowing down for - look through the bends and use the pull-offs.
Valdresflye → Gjende is 17 km. Brakes and eyes forward; the views are behind the corners, not in them.
Gjende → Vagamo is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.