The Cormet de Roselend is the pass of cheese and water. It lies in the Beaufortain massif, between the town of Beaufort and the valley of the Isère, and for much of the climb you are riding through the pastures where the cows that make Beaufort cheese spend their summers, wearing bells and grazing on alpine flowers. The cheese, which is aged in the valley, is one of the most prized in France, and it is the reason this valley is prosperous and well kept. A wheel, with its distinctive concave edge, is sold in nearly every village.
The other half of the story is the artificial lake. Below the pass, at about 1,550 metres, the Roselend dam, built in the early 1960s, flooded a whole valley and turned it into a vast turquoise reservoir, and the old village disappeared under the water. A tiny stone chapel, the Chapelle Notre-Dame de la Visitation, was moved to the shore and now sits on the edge, with the mountains in the background, one of the most photographed little buildings in the French Alps. The road runs along the shore for several kilometres before the final climb to the pass at 1,967 metres.
On a motorcycle, this is a big, open and generous road. From Beaufort, the climb is gradual, with wide bends and good visibility, then there is a series of hairpins up toward the col. On the other side, toward Bourg-Saint-Maurice, the descent runs down the Isère valley with views of Mont Blanc on a clear day, and the road gets narrower and more twisting. The surface is generally good, though the cold winters take their toll, and the pass is closed from about late October to early June. Cyclists climb this in large numbers, so be ready for them around the bends.
Beaufort has fuel and a couple of shops, and Bourg-Saint-Maurice, thirteen kilometres from the pass, is the nearest larger town with all the services. The best time is June, when the meadows are in flower and the cows are just being driven up, or September, when the air is clear and cold, and the light on the lake is a pale gold.