Le Pilgrimage Bikepacking

Le Pilgrimage Bikepacking is the newest chapter of Le Pilgrimage, the Alpine gravel gathering that Simon Rosmolen, a Dutch former tour guide living in Puy-Saint-Vincent, created with his longtime friend Cyril Chermin. Where the original event returns to its hotel basecamp each evening, this edition sends riders out on one long loop through the French and Italian Alps, introduced to mark the event's fifth year.

The planned route links the Écrins massif and the Vallée des Fonts with the high military roads of Piedmont, including the Colle del Sommeiller, the Colle delle Finestre, the Strada dell'Assietta and the Strada dei Cannoni, along with the Gardetta plateau. Around half of it is unpaved, from forest roads to rocky tracks, with a little singletrack, some stretches on foot, and village coffee and focaccia on the Italian side.

There is no timing and no ranking. Riders set their own pace, choose where to eat and sleep, and carry what they need, with mountain refuges acting as checkpoints where a meal and fellow pilgrims are waiting. As at every Pilgrimage, it begins and ends at the long table of the Hôtel Saint Roch, with a shared dinner before the start and another to swap stories at the end, in English and French alike.