Coming back to the pass at the end of a ride is a different thing from setting out. The light has changed, the legs are looser, and you notice the small stuff you rushed past in the morning: the cowbells, the smell of cut grass and cold stone, the way beech trees lean over a bend as if they were reading the road. The Col de la Faucille sits at about 1,320 metres on the French side of the Jura, and its best trick is that it hides the lake until the last moment, then lays the whole of Lake Geneva out below you in one go.
Heading down from the col toward Gex, the road drops in a run of broad bends with the Pays de Gex spread beneath like a tablecloth. In the late afternoon, the Alps are lit from the side, and on a clear evening Mont Blanc turns pink while the valley below goes blue. It is the best view of the day and a good reason to stop for a few minutes. Be careful of the gravel that collects on the outside of the hairpins, and of the cyclists who toil up the same road and then come back down faster than you would believe.
The area has odd and interesting neighbours. A short way below, at the foot of the slope, is Ferney-Voltaire, where the writer Voltaire lived for the last two decades of his life, writing, farming and annoying kings from a safe distance across the border. Not much further, on the plain near Geneva, CERN's rings run under the fields, so the quiet pastures sit above one of the largest scientific machines on earth. Both facts feel absurd when a herd of cows is blocking the road in front of you.
For the end of a loop, Gex is the sensible place to finish. It has fuel, bakeries, cafes and supermarkets, and a sense of ordinary life that is welcome after the mountains. If you still have energy, the climb back to the pass for a last look at sunset is worthwhile, though temperatures drop quickly after dark, and fog can roll in from the Swiss side in minutes. Take a layer, and give the cows right of way.