Alpine Break

Another great ride. We used a shuttle to cut down a bit on the climbing making this more of a freeride descent. Though there was still 800m of climbing by the end of the ride. Initially the track heads up some forestry roads out of Ponteil up towards the Cabane de Tramouillon at 1963m where it is possible to park a few cars. Directly to the west is the impressive overhanging cliff of Le Peyron and to the north west, in the direction we are heading are the amazing burnt orange cliffs on the Crete de Gaulent, and a steep hill.

There was some 250m of climbing from the cabane up to the col about a third of which was rideable, a third you could push the bike and a third needed the bike carrying. Don’t take a heavy bike on this route.
The top of the col is a great vantage point with views to the Morgon massif in the south and the Ecrins and Brianconnais to the north.

The descent started off on a steep technical ridge with the Durance valley right down below our right elbows. This was the start of 2 hours descending over 1600m, nearly all of which was amazing single track. The track passed through a large boulder field before heading into a large alpine meadow and then into some fantastic wooded singletrack with a set of switchbacks that just went on for ever.

After these there was more fast single track traversing back under the cliffs we had just gone along the top of, before popping out onto a fire road for a bit of a climb before another section of fast singletrack that cut back under the crags at Ponteil.

A hundred meters up the tarmac through Ponteil then put us on a really steep technical section dropping some 500m back down to the valley floor.

Here is a map of the ride

download it to view in Google Earth

Filed under: Photo on July 19th, 2007