I’m just back from the annual trip to the French Alps and once again it confirmed that it’s my favourite place to ride a bike. Breathtaking scenery, staggering roads – almost all with great surfaces and rarely much (if any) traffic. It’s heaven for motorcycles.

 

I got to ride a couple of old favourites on this trip, but sadly didn’t have time to detour to take in two often-overlooked but lovely roads: Col de la Lombarde and Col de Larche. I just couldn’t shoehorn them into my route… so I’ve built this daytrip to celebrate them instead.

 

These are fabulous roads. Then both connect France and Italy, but they’re quite different. Col de Larche is a broad, two-lane road that climbs in a series of stately hairpins, Col de la Lombarde is an altogether wilder proposition – still two lanes but narrower, tighter, bursting out above the treeline to run across open moorland (often grazed by cattle that can roam onto the road).

 

As well as making the most of these two great roads, this route complements the various versions of the more-adventurous “Hill of the Dead” routes, so you can stay in Guillestre for an extra night to have a second stunning day of riding.