The name sounds like a joke, but it is a piece of industrial history. La Machine, in the Nièvre in central France, grew up around a coal mine, and it takes its name from the machine, a steam-driven pump installed in the eighteenth century to drain the mine shafts, which was such a novelty that it gave the place its identity. Mining continued here for centuries, and the last pit closed in the 1970s. Today, the Musée de la Mine, built around the old headframe, tells the story of the miners, with a reconstructed gallery where you can see how they worked.
It is a quiet working town, not a pretty one, and it is worth knowing that it has nothing to do with the famous Col de la Machine, the vertiginous balcony road above the Combe Laval in the Vercors, far away to the south-east near Grenoble. If your ride name led you to expect cliffs and tunnels, the plateau here will be a surprise. That said, the Nivernais countryside around La Machine is pleasant enough riding: rolling hills, woods, meadows and small villages, with quiet roads.
Decize, a few kilometres south, is the more interesting town for a stop. It sits on an island in the Loire, at the junction with the Aron and the Canal du Nivernais, and its old town has the remains of a castle and a long promenade of plane trees along the river. The canal itself, built to carry timber from the Morvan to Paris, is now used by pleasure boats, and its towpaths are popular with cyclists.
La Machine has a few bars and restaurants, and Decize has more choice and fuel. The roads in the area are generally good, quiet and easy, with gentle curves and little traffic. To the east lie the forests and hills of the Morvan, with more challenging roads, and to the west the Loire valley. The Loire here is wild and unchanneled, with sandbanks and islands that change shape with the floods, and the riverside roads have a peaceful, timeless quality. Summers are warm and pleasant; winters can be damp and grey.