Boucle du Vercors

My ‘Boucle du Vercors’ is a 320km mixed-surface itinerary through the stunning Vercors Natural Park, just outside Grenoble, France. It is one of my favourite places and one of France’s best-kept secrets. A playground for outdoor adventure sports, yet relatively unknown to tourists, which means you don’t have to share the roads or trails with many other people. This route is AMAZING, dominated by limestone cliffs and gorges, with panoramic viewpoints galore. So varied, so quiet and utterly beautiful. It is a combination of all my favourite places in the Vercors combined into one loop. Just over 50% of the route is small quiet paved roads (some of the most spectacular parts are on paved roads), and the rest is predominantly gravel 4x4 tracks, but with a little single track scattered in between. You may have to push your bike for short periods on steeper sections, but in general, it is a non-technical route suitable for gravel bikes with medium to wide tyres (or hardtails).Being a loop you can start the journey at any point, and I have split the route into small 50km sections, so you can create your itinerary based on your expected daily mileage. I anticipate 4-5 days to ride this route at a leisurely pace, taking in the sites and having a couple of river dips along the way.