Description:

The Vercors, south of Grenoble, is a maze of canyons and tiny mountain roads that climb the vertical rock walls. Dramatic driving experience for drivers is guaranteed free from vertigo.


Cut-off Road “,” dangerous stretch “- just by looking at the Michelin map shows that of the Vercors to anticipate unusual driving situations, thus I could impress my buddy Kurt planning a trip difficult ravines, breathtaking mountain trails and mind-boggling number of curves… pal Kurt strikes. His first trip to France is settled.

“Road closed, parked danger of falling rocks, not here.” The language on the mountain road behind Montaud is clear. 50 meter after the sign a huge pile of dirt across the street. No obstacle to our bikes, a KTM 990 Adventure and a KTM 690th We continue to feel before, because ultimately we want to know what to think of a “cut-off road”. That this road may never again will be continuous, we see a little later: A huge landslide in the 1990s departed from the vertical rock wall above us and has a true canyon planed. From the road is no longer to see the slightest trace. Then a thud behind us, a large stone head crashing down. Dozens of smaller and larger rocks along which we groped here to speak for themselves – if not already on the alert, the sign want to believe. “We Hau’n off,” Kurt thinks that only dry.

Coming from the north of Grenoble and the Isere valley, we are going hineinzutasten us in the Vercors, in this chunky rock solid, which is just 30 to 40 kilometers in size, but very twisty. His white limestone cliffs rise to over 2000 meters up and frame a zerschluchtetes plateau riddled like Swiss cheese. Deep and narrow gorges between steep rock walls, squeezing themselves through the oversized Vercors cheese and the roads to follow them. In part directly, into the cliffs and into perilous routes to the top.

Not all roads do it permanently. This has again brought Montaud here at the mountain. So back to the village of Saint-Quentin and back down into the Isere valley. We follow the river to the south and find in Saint-Gervais, a tiny road that leads back to the rocks. That roads in the Vercors and vertical rock walls in front have no respect, we see a little later. High above the canyon of Ecouges has carved into the car just wide asphalt strip in the vertical and passed around an overhanging rock face.

Until a few years ago that was one of the few entrances to the plateau. Today it has defused the breakneck part through a tunnel. But what kind of: Claustrophobic and it goes pitch black unlit right through the rock, the water droplets can fall into our jacket collar.

Comparatively relaxed, we then roll on to a plateau in the south Vercorsblockes. But soon this extraordinary drama resumes its scenery: steep drop in the street in the Gorges de la Bourne, a deep and long throat, which divides the Vercorsblock into a northern and a southern half. Winds high above the river Bourne is on the road by sheer rock walls, disappearing in small tunnels or under overhangs, rounded exposed outcrops. As you already know from just the Canyon of the Vanquished Ecouges?

Villard-de-Lans is reached, the main town on the Vercors plateau. Cosy hotel, motorcycle garage, fabulous dinner. From here we are this narrow, perforated Vercors cheese are still investigating a few days more precisely. For example, the Gorges du Nan the next morning.Einfadelspur are the Gorges de la Bourne again. Then our feeder high to Presles and out of the gorge. Full program re-Vercors: rock galleries, tunnels, abandoned places, tiny streets in a vertical rock wall, just limited by a knee-high little wall. “Nothing for shits,” says Kurt buddy when you look at the sheer precipice.

Up on the plateau we find the branch already after a few miles to the next nightmare for all the wimpy route, the tiny streets of the Gorges du Nan to Cognin-les-Gorges. Actually, we thought they had already seen everything you can to hammer the middle road cut into a rock wall. But the Gorges du Nan add some more.

Again, just a knee-high wall that separates the running track in a vertical rock wall of the chasm. Overhangs, outcrops, tunnels – and everything closely so that you do not dare take his eyes off the front wheel. We push against the rock wall along just to be a bit away from that abyss. Speed and fun? Not now! Oncoming traffic? Please not now! Luckily, no one comes through here. Anyone who has driven that road knows why.

In Cognin-les-Gorges, the Isere valley is reached there follows a more upbeat stance towards the south. For just five kilometers, then a lane leading back up to block the Vercors. This time – what a surprise – just tight turns for the fun ride. Without trembling knees, we reached the remote Tibetan monastery, with its Montchardon. Colorfully painted pillars standing on the street, green growing all around. Relax, breathe deeply.

The Vercors once without fear of heights.

But still many tiny ways to explore nature. We find the slope towards Le Fas only because of a hiking sign, but the track is not locked. That it is rocky and washed out, our bikes can only be good. It goes through the woods and then over long grass, until we reach the tiny Le Fas. Rein in the cheese, out of the cheese: From Le Fas are already a breakneck curve track down the Isere Valley to Saint-Pierre-de-Cherennes. Actually we are moving in the last three hours in a zigzag, and only in a radius of less than ten kilometers. But with cinema landscape of the wildest kind.

Since there may be times when something historical atmosphere contrast. We achieve – again along the limestone cliffs in the Isere valley Propelled – Pont-en-Royans, the architectural treasure chest of the Vercors. Maybe it’s the rock shelters all around, which have inspired people for centuries to build their houses like an overhanging rock face above the river Bourne. “Even when viewed from the toilet window to get here, the fear of heights,” says Kurt.

In terms of fear of heights, we are after a small break even on the move again. Target: Col de la Machine. The 1000 meter high pass in the south of the Vercors is relatively unspectacular in the forest, but to reach it, you will pass on the magic name of this region: Combe Laval. Like a rock amphitheater walls encircle one end of the valley. In the middle of the vertical, 600 feet above the valley floor and makes the stunned eyes of a horizontal line, which blasted into the road as a rock gallery.

Then we are up there, and almost without warning, the perfectly normal-Vercors madness begins with a dance on the edge. Tunnel, rock outcrop, no proper road boundary – and the wide mouth of a ubiquitous abyss.

This narrow traffic route is so insane that we like him then turn around and drive back in the opposite direction. Now we can not press down on the rock wall, now we go out there on the precipice, trying to keep breathing normally and the eyes on the road.

The Discovery of Slowness is the fear of Vertikalen.Am Col de la Machine a break with it then look at the map.

Legendary winding roads waiting for us around Grenoble and the Vencors. In the south of the Col de la Bataille and the Col de Rousset, the Savoy Alps in the east, with names like Galibier and Croix de Fer – slopes, load change, sprints and hot brakes. But as a prelude to any further travel until the day his adrenaline must only be offered by the Vercors. A pack of vertigo on one of these mountain roads as a special kind of Einfadelstuck Long lives the vertical!