Jan Sallawitz

The canyon cuts deep into the karstic landscape; I struggle to find my feet on the slippery ledge. The water roars at my feet and plunges into a deep, black hole. The noise is so loud that I can't possibly understand what Stefan is trying to tell me, but his outstretched thumb and broad grin show that everything seems to be fine.

A trail could hardly be better. We hurtle down a small path through the forest over steep, gravelly bends. A small jump and another and we're back in the beautiful open heathland of Scotland. Here you can really let your bike run free. The rhododendron bushes along the path can only be recognized as blurred purple stripes, that's how fast it goes downhill now.

"If ya got twennythousand bucks, ya can fucking slam that fucking door!" Jean-Marc is beside himself with rage and we look pretty embarrassed. Jean-Marc is the helicopter pilot. Small and stocky, dressed in an oil-smeared red polyester flying jacket with the words "Klondike Heliskiing" printed on it, he looks at us angrily through his mirrored pilot's goggles.

The sun has been shining on April 2 in La Grave for 22 years. Good karma for one of the most legendary Derby races in the world. And this year, Peter and Mother Hulda made common cause and sent half a meter of fresh snow to the front of the Bluebird on race day. The Meije – the mountain of the race – shines in a fresh, white dress with the faces of the thousands of race participants who have arrived.

The blue of the train station is the only friendly color of our destination. Apatity was founded because of the occurrence of "apatite", a rare mineral used for fertilizer. And that's how it looks here too...

The station is located in the middle of the taiga on a small river and is comfortably furnished. There is even a log cabin sauna with a small footbridge to the river, where a hole has been cut into the mighty ice sheet for ice bathing. Valentina, the resolute cook, a soul of a person, welcomes us with a hot soup.

In the beginning was the picture. It was of a strange mountain formation at night, the likes of which we had never seen before. Matthias had come across it while searching the internet for new winter sports opportunities in the Caucasus. But this couldn't be the Caucasus. Like a lunar landscape, folded mountain ranges formed around a basin that seemed to be filled with a lake of light. The flat ridges of the peaks fell away abruptly towards the viewer, and the evenly sloping ridges descended into the vegetation zone in an almost geometric order. The mountains were massively snow-covered – one striking flank in the foreground was even covered in a layer of ice. The decision was quickly made: We have to go there!

Location: The river Durance, which rises near Mont Genevrè in the Hautes-Alpes department, close to the Italian border, separates the Dauphiné from the Cottian Alps with its picturesque valley, the Val Durance. On its way to the Rhône, it crosses the towns of Briançon, Embrun and Sisteron before flowing into the Rhône in the Vaucluse department south of Avignon.

The late summer light makes for unique colors at this time of year. Under a steel-blue sky, lush green patches of mountain forests alternate with meadows and brambles in all shades of brown on the colossal mountain flanks. The walls and rock towers in between shine brightly in the sunlight and the air is almost as clear as in winter. On small hills and along the small rivers, crooked and crooked stone houses huddle together to form hamlets or small villages.

The Val Durance lies in the far south-east of France, between the Dauphiné and the Cottian Alps. Some of the passes are well-known from various Tour de France broadcasts. But hardly anyone knows about the magnificent trails and rugged descents over miles of scree slopes in this remote area... That's why we set out to explore the Val Durance by mountain bike.

An emaciated old man in his underpants sits on the edge and carefully ladles the hot sulphur water over his head. I carefully dip my foot into the pool and recoil: the water seems to be boiling! It's unimaginable to go in without getting burned. But the old man nods encouragingly at me and very slowly I let myself slide into the pool...

In bright sunshine the next morning, we set off for the high-altitude camp "Bargahsevom" at 4,200 m, the last one before the summit. We want to see how far Mount Damavand can be climbed by bike. However, the astonished to pitying looks of the oncoming mountaineers clearly lower our confidence. And indeed, we are only able to ride the first few meters on the dusty single trail, then we have to push – the remaining 1200 metres in altitude to the camp. Only the prospect of riding down this path again motivates us to push our bikes uphill, hairpin bend by hairpin bend...