Vercors Balcony Roads

davidof

Despite living just north of the Vercors I rarely go there as it involved crossing Grenoble. However yesterday we made an exception to ride the Col de la Machine and the road over Choranche, Presles and down the Gorges de Cognin.







The descent from the Machine has a nice unlit tunnel



Lunch stops are few and far apart in September. One restauranteur didn't want to serve at 1.45pm and told us "there is a McDonalds in St Marcellin" - some 40km ride away.

The climb up to Presles is on a quiet but narrow road, we were forced into a ditch by a lunatic white van man though.





Then a wide descent through the Maneval valley and the Gorges de Cognin



A cyclist went over the wall somewhere round here in August and fell 250 meters to his death.

Here is a video of the ride:

https://youtu.be/hEjVMl02OHo

We started at Cognin les Gorges, road by the river on a series of back roads to St Laurent, climbed the Machine then Pont sur Royans, Choranche, Col des Autres, Presles, Maneval and back down to Cognin for 2300 meters of ascent over a reasonably 95km.

dabber

That looks like a great route. I might be tempted to head east from the Lot for a couple of days

Flâneur

Have you got a route map for this? Curious about it n all that

davidof

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19708524#p19708524]sa0u823e[/url] wrote:

Have you got a route map for this? Curious about it n all that

Hi,
does this work for you?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/33enz6uwvoabuq7/Vercors.gpx.zip?dl=0

briantrumpet

Thanks for this - it's been a cracking year for getting onto Vercors. I don't know the north end of the plateau so well, and certainly not that descent with the unlit tunnel (I still haven't quite worked out which road it is). If I've got friends staying with a car next summer I think I'll try to make up a route with that and the Canyon des Ecouges and its rabbit-hole tunnel. It's just a bit too far to get right up north from Die and back in a day on the bike. Love the Presles balcony bit too!

The Kennington Kaiser

Nice route, thanks for posting. And some typical French customer service too.....