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.
213 km from Briançon to Briançon, about 4 h 06 of riding. The stops in between: La place forte de Mont-Dauphin, Chapitre and back through La place forte de Mont-Dauphin. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,300 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
The ride follows Route des Grandes Alpes for 33 km.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Briançon sits at a height of more than thirteen hundred metres, which makes it the highest city in France, and it has the defences to match. The old town on its hilltop is ringed by walls built to the plans of Vauban, Louis XIV's military engineer, in the decades after 1700, and together with a fort across the valley they make a showpiece of the works that UNESCO listed in 2008. The walls are still intact, the gates still work, and from the ramparts the view over the meeting of valleys is spectacular.
Read the complete L’enceinte urbaine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
L’enceinte urbaine is where the day begins. Next is La place forte de Mont-Dauphin.
Vauban built this in a hurry, and you can feel the urgency in the plan. After the Duke of Savoy invaded Dauphiné in 1692, Louis XIV's great military engineer chose a spur of rock above the meeting of the Durance and the Guil rivers and laid out a fortified town on a strict grid, with ramparts, bastions and a parade ground. Mont-Dauphin was meant to close the Durance valley to any army coming from Italy, and it is one of the twelve groups of Vauban fortifications that UNESCO listed in 2008. The buildings are in a rosy-grey marble from the nearby quarries of Guillestre, and in evening light they glow like embers.
Read the complete La place forte de Mont-Dauphin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La place forte de Mont-Dauphin comes up about 33 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chapitre.
Le Chapitre is a small name on a map of the southern Alps, in the Hautes-Alpes department, in the green trough of the Champsaur where the Drac river gathers itself before heading to Grenoble. Saint-Bonnet-en-Champsaur and La Roche-des-Arnauds are the nearest villages, each under two thousand people, and Gap, the departmental capital with forty-odd thousand, is about ten kilometres away.
Read the complete Chapitre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 106 km into the recorded legs you reach Chapitre. Next is back through La place forte de Mont-Dauphin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La place forte de Mont-Dauphin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La place forte de Mont-Dauphin, late in the day. Next is L’enceinte urbaine.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete L’enceinte urbaine write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at L’enceinte urbaine. That is the ride.
L’enceinte urbaine → La place forte de Mont-Dauphin is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La place forte de Mont-Dauphin → Chapitre is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Chapitre → back through La place forte de Mont-Dauphin is 73 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through La place forte de Mont-Dauphin → L’enceinte urbaine is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.