Grande Traversée de Vaucluse

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A technical, physical, and wandering route designated by the French Cycling Federation.

The route, including variations, is composed of 400 signposted kilometers with a total elevation gain of 10,000 meters. It travels for days over the beautiful trails of Mont Ventoux and the Luberon. You'll discover landscapes of vineyards, lavender, ochre, and climbing cliffs, historic villages, and exceptional panoramas on this crossing of the Vaucluse Department (French administrative area roughly equivalent to a US state).

You'll stay in villages along the route. There are hotels, gites and restaurants, or camping if you are determined to bikepack.

If a week of riding is not enough, there are many more trail options in the Mont Ventoux and Luberon areas.

This magnificent multi-day route links together the following trails. The segments are generally done two per day for the shorter segments, yielding a 6-8 day ride. But doing the Traverse over more days allows for more relaxed riding and visits to natural and historic attractions in the Vaucluse and Luberon.

The stages:

1. Savoillans to St-Léger-du-Ventoux (8.5 miles)
2. Saint-Léger-du-Ventoux to Malaucène (13.1 miles). Stages 1 and 2 are typically combined.
3. Malaucène to Lafare (12.1 miles)
4. Lafare to Bèdoin (15.2 miles). Stages 3 and 4 are typically combined.
5. Bèdoin to Chalet Reynard (14.7 miles). Big climb day. Can be combined with Stage 6 if you are fit enough.
6. Chalet Reynard to Aurel (17.1 miles)
7. Aurel to Monieux (8.2 miles)
8. Monieux to Saint-Saturnin-les-Apt (26.5 miles). Stages 7 and 8 are typically combined. Or you can split them more evenly by breaking at Saint-Hubert instead of Monieux.
9. Saint-Saturnin-lès-Apt to Vitrolles-en-Luberon (29.6 miles). You can break at Vien for two shorter days.
10. Vitrolles-en-Luberon to Lauris (30.8 miles). You can break at Sivergues for two shorter days.
11. Lauris to Robion (16.9 miles). You can also break at Maubec, instead.
12. Robion to Mérindol (18.9 miles)

Reaching Saint-Saturnin-Lès-Apt after 8 stages, you can instead elect a CCW route variation to finish the ride as follows:

9. Saint-Saturnin-Lès-Apt to Murs (13.9 miles)
10. Murs to Fontaine-de-Vaucluse (19.4 miles)
11. Fontaine-de-Vaucluse to Robion (10.6 miles)
12. Robion to Mérindol (18.9 miles)

You begin by circumnavigating Mont Ventoux, the highest and most prominent peak in Provence. Famously ascended as the first purely recreational mountain climb by Petrarch in 1336, the mountain now provides undoubtedly the most iconic stage of the Tour de France bike race.

The Vaucluse was the heart of the French Resistance in WWII. The Maquisard guerillas fled forced labor and concentration camps, hid out in the hills near Gordes, making trouble for the Nazis and earning themselves vicious reprisals.