The wind is getting me down. It was already blowing unpleasantly from the side in the valley and now it's whipping at us from a different direction every two minutes. It's bitingly cold and it's pulling through my jacket, which isn't made for this weather.
The hood is big enough for me to pull it over my helmet. The gusts of wind try to knock it down again immediately. We really have to concentrate so that we don't get swept into the abyss during the tug-of-war. There's simply no point. Everyone is shivering from the cold and we can't see anything at the top in the fog anyway. Stefan shouts something against the storm. I don't understand his words, but his hands form a clear T: time out - okay, abort.
The door falls firmly into the lock with a gust of wind, the warmth of the oven envelops us. Finally in the hut, finally safe and quiet. Romain, the landlord of the Refuge du Chambeyron, is not surprised to see us again. "I told you that the Tête de la Fréma makes no sense in this weather." We had only stopped for a short break under a tin roof at lunchtime to regain our strength for the last 500 metres to the 3151-metre summit. But no chance. The Roof of Provence doesn't want any guests today. You have to accept that. So back to the safe, albeit spartanly equipped hut. Maybe we'll have better luck tomorrow.
We had imagined a different start to our Trans-Provence. Sure, who thinks of storms, fog and high alpine moonscapes when they think of Provence? We are still at least four days' ride away from the famous lavender fields that first spring to mind when you think of Provence. We - that's enduro rider Julia Hofmann, freerider Mario Lenzen, photographer Stefan Neuhauser and me - want to cross Provence this year. From the summit of the Tête de la Fréma, the "Roof of Provence", to Manosque in Haute-Provence. We will roughly follow the Ubaye river valley. Philippe Leouffre had promised us 300 kilometres and 8,500 metres in altitude on mostly the finest trails, and he must know, because he designed and signposted the route.
The next morning, a blue sky shines over us. The sun still has to climb over the 3389 metre high Le Brec de Chambeyron, so it's still below freezing outside, but at least there's no wind. Clouds of steam rise from the small lake behind the hut and the meadows are white with frost. So Tête de la Fréma, second attempt: we pedal off quickly to warm up as quickly as possible, but the first ramp stifles our momentum again. The trail winds its way up the steep slope and is only rideable in sections. We have to push again and again. The path to the Tête de la Fréma is not an easy one, not even today. But the panorama is breathtaking. We pass mighty rock faces and several mountain lakes with a mirrored panorama. The route to the summit is always in sight. But from here, the path doesn't look as steep and exposed as it is about to become. With the bike on our shoulders and in thin air, we soon can't afford a single misstep. But at some point, we finally reach the top of the roof of Provence, over which the French-Italian border runs.
The downhill trail that we travelled up here for begins directly below the summit cross. Exposed and extremely rough-edged, the path hangs in the rock face. Descending now could have painful consequences. This shaky section is followed by a scree passage over a very steep ridge. Switchbacks wind steeply downwards and the brakes work hard. I just hope that the discs don't start to glow and abruptly lose their braking power. After 150 metres in altitude, the path eases up, we cross a plateau with a small lake and have fun all the way down into the valley. We stop at the Les Granges hut to order a snack, then follow the course of the Ubaye river westwards on a beautiful sandy trail. Here we meet Philippe, the route designer. He seems worried because we have lost time due to the bad weather at the Tête de la Fréma. He has organised a shuttle bus for us so that his accommodation plans don't get completely out of hand. An hour later, we are already standing on a plateau with a view of the rooftops of Montclar.
This means that the route takes a rather unreasonable detour to the south, but that is so typical in France. Here, the fastest route from A to B is almost never chosen, but the most exciting one.
We now have superbly shaped bike park trails under our tyres, which we tackle again thanks to the lift. We head to our accommodation in Montclar. Philipp prepares us for what awaits us on the next stage, then he says goodbye to us again. We don't need him as a guide. We have a map and GPS data, and the route is signposted.
Two major highlights await us the next day: the Terres Noires, not far from Tigne-les-Bains. We cycle uphill on a tarmac road for about an hour until a sign on the right lets us turn off onto a sandy trail. Now we climb a little further uphill through a dry stream bed, then we stand on a high plateau and look down on the small Terres Noires. Here, layers of black rock slide over each other in bizarre shapes. A little green sprouts between the ridges, and trail tracks wind around and over the humps. A few spots that we have already seen in magazines immediately catch our eye. Countless photos for catalogues have already been taken here. A first cautious slide test with the shoe confirms what Philipp promised us: the best grip, just like on the famous sand rocks of Moab. The small ones are immediately followed by the large Terres Noires, which we save for dessert after lunch. The black bumps here are more than man-high and can even be used for wall rides. A pro like Fabien Barell supposedly fine-tunes his skills here every winter for the coming downhill season. It goes without saying that we don't want to simply speed through here either, but want to play with gravity a little more. At the end of the trail and the day, Philippe is once again waiting for us in the shuttle bus.
The further south-west we go, the flatter and more gently the mountains undulate. You could almost call them hills, although the constant ups and downs take their toll. But it already smells so Mediterranean of herbs that our eyes are constantly scanning the horizon for sea blue. Although Philippe had already dashed our hopes at the start. Unfortunately, the sea doesn't feature at all on this trail trip to Manosque. At the moment, the Montagne de Lure is taking care of that, pushing itself between us and the sea like a wall. As the last outpost of the Southern Alps, this long mountain range towers up to 1826 metres into the sky. But what makes it particularly interesting for us is the trail that winds down its southern side. Local enduro riders created it some time ago, and as it is one of the trail highlights of Provence, Philipp naturally included it in the route. It's late afternoon by the time we've cranked our way up the huge mountain flank. At the top, we have a tremendous view of the valley and the Valensole plateau. Unfortunately, the lavender has already faded. From mid-June to mid-August, we would probably have been looking down on a sea of purple colours from up here. Now, at the end of September, the evening sun can only elicit a delicate fragrance from the huge fields that stretch across the plateau. We find the trail entrance, which is marked with capital cairns, and are impressed: the sun is just illuminating the steep, rocky gravel slope in orange-red as we feel our way round the first bends in the path. The ground is a little loose and crumbly at first. It takes us a few bends to get used to the new conditions, but then we get that real surfing feeling. We fly downhill for 1000 metres in altitude. At the end, we cross a few olive groves and reach our next stage destination at the bottom of the valley: Etienne les Orgues.
"Hey, mates, you really can't do that!" We're just sitting down to dinner at the Gîte les Vignaus when Julia pushes the carafe of wine over to me again. In the French huts, you're not even asked what you want to drink. So landlady Chantal put a carafe of water and one of red wine on the table. Unfortunately, I have a lot of avowed teetotallers with me on this tour. So I've always had to drink the wine on my own. But today, on the penultimate evening, at least Julia should drink with me. After all, she's only one of the "not really drinkers". After two or three shakes of the head, she is convinced and the evening in this slightly crazy hut turns out to be a lot of fun.
When Julia comes shuffling in for breakfast the next morning, we are already sitting outside in the garden under a fig tree. The table is laid with all kinds of fruit, fresh croissants, baguettes and cheese, and French chansons are playing from the house. Unfortunately, Julia can't hear much of it this morning. No, she really doesn't want to eat anything, she'd rather stick to tea.
On our last stage, we cycle through hilly landscapes and wind our way from one small mountain village to the next. Until we pass a bizarre rock garden, the Rochers des Mourres. Our trail here actually leads around limestone formations as high as houses, which look like giant mushrooms. So it's early evening before we finally reach the destination of our Provence traverse after six days: the famous narrow streets of Manosque.
INFO TRANS-PROVENCE
The route
The Trans-Provence is an officially signposted mountain bike route. It leads from the Tête de la Fréma, the "Roof of Provence", over exposed and extremely technical trails further along the Ubaye, through the black sandstone cliffs of the Terres Noires, over the perfect enduro trails of the Montagne de Lure and further over gentler meadow trails, through lavender fields and olive groves to the old town centre of Manosque ("The Hussar on the Roof"), famous from literature.
The bottom line: A varied and consistently perfect bike tour that is fun from start to finish, but requires solid riding technique. The overnight stays in the gîtes are another highlight of the tour. Most of them are beautiful old houses that have been lovingly restored. Guests are spoilt with great food and plenty of wine. Due to the bad weather at the beginning, we were pressed for time and travelled a few sections in the shuttle bus in between.
Route description
The route measures a total of 300 kilometres, 8500 vertical metres uphill, 10160 vertical metres downhill and can be ridden in 6-8 stages. The GPS data for the "Grande Traversée VTT L'Alpes-Provence" tour is available at www.vtt.alpes-haute-provence.fr. Since 2017, the tour has also been organised by www.biketours-oberstdorf.com offered as a guided tour. Shuttle service: www.bike-access.com
