Muslin made Tarare's fortune. From the eighteenth century onwards the town wove fine, light cotton cloth that was sold across Europe, and every few years it still celebrates the fact with the Fête des Mousselines, when the streets and façades disappear under kilometres of draped fabric in a riot of colour. Outside festival time, Tarare is a quiet valley town in the hills between the Beaujolais and the Lyonnais, with old mill buildings and a long main street.
The road that matters here is the old Route Nationale 7, the legendary Paris to the Riviera highway of French holiday memory. West of Tarare it climbs out of the valley over the Col du Pin Bouchain, a long series of curves through forest that was feared by lorry drivers and loved by everyone else. The motorway has taken the heavy traffic away, carried on tall viaducts across the valleys, and the old road has become a pleasure to ride, with well-cambered bends and fine views back over the hills.
The surrounding hills are wooded and green, with meadows and small villages, and the roads that wander north into the Beaujolais are a delight, narrow and twisting, climbing over passes and dropping into wine villages. Weather here can be cooler and wetter than in Lyon, and fog can sit on the pass in autumn.
Tarare has fuel, supermarkets, bakeries and restaurants, an easy and sensible stop before or after the climb. For a coffee with character, look for a café near the town hall rather than the retail zone on the edge of town. Cross the col in the morning, when the light comes through the trees, and the Loire plain opens out ahead as you descend.