Briançon, our starting point, is the city that more than any other wrote the history of cycling, with legendary stage finishes of the Tour and the Giro; it’s also an architecture gem, with the Vauban fortresses, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Left behind the walls of the old city, we will ride the panoramic roads cutting the canyons dug by the Durance river, on a hilly route leading us to Mont-Dauphin, another Vauban’s masterpiece, and Embrun. Then we will climb the slopes of the mountains surrounding the Serre-Ponçon lake, facing the first big climb of our tour, the Col de la Moissière, opening the doors to the Champsaur region.

The astonishing Col du Noyer is a short but steep climb in between of dizzy calcareous walls; the following descent on the wild roads of Dévoluy precede the long ascent to the Chalet-Hotel du Gioberney, at the end of the most Himalayan French valley, lying in an immense glacial cirque in the heart of the Écrins massif.

Rode back down the Valgaudemar, we will head towards the crystal waters of the Sautet Lake and the slopes of the Col d’Ornon, crossing villages in which time seems to have stop. Then we will ride up the Vénéon valley till La Bérarde, a fascinating place surrounded by the peaks that made the history of alpinism, like La Meije and the Barre des Écrins, before stopping in La Grave, to admire the breath-taking panorama on the glacier from the village of Le Chazelet.

Nothing left than going over the famous Col du Lautaret and jumping into the descent towards Briançon leaving the main road for the quieter ones crossing the villages lying in the Guisane vally floor.