The road from Lyon over the Col de la Luère is a local institution. It climbs west from the suburbs into the Monts du Lyonnais, through woods and meadows, with a series of bends that every rider and cyclist in Lyon seems to know by heart, and Pollionnay, a small village at the foot of the climb, is where many of them end their rides. It has a church, a few houses on the slopes and views back over the city, and it feels much further from Lyon than it actually is.
The Monts du Lyonnais are a range of rounded hills west of Lyon, rising to around nine hundred metres, with a dense network of small roads through farmland, forests and villages. The landscape is green and gentle, with fruit orchards, dairy farms and stone farmhouses, and the roads are quiet and winding, with constant changes of gradient. The Yzeron valley, just south, has a small reservoir and pleasant roads along the river.
The rides that end here come back from the high Alps and Provence. The Alpe d'Huez, with its twenty-one numbered hairpins, each named after a winner of the Tour de France stage that finishes there, is cycling folklore, and it is a fantastic ride on a motorcycle, though often crowded with cyclists. Mont Ventoux, the Giant of Provence, rises to around 1,900 metres from the lavender fields of the Vaucluse, its bare white summit of limestone scree visible for miles, and the memorial to the British cyclist Tom Simpson, who died on its slopes in 1967, stands near the top.
After such long days, the gentle hills of the Lyonnais are a welcome sight. Pollionnay itself is small, with limited services, but the surrounding towns, like Craponne and Tassin, have fuel, shops and restaurants. The weather in the Monts du Lyonnais can be cooler and wetter than in Lyon, and the roads can be slippery in the shade under the trees.