CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Vineyards, stone villages and low-stress sweepers. Out of Theizé and back again: 182 km, roughly 3 h 22 in the saddle. It goes by way of Beaujeu vineyard road, Cluny stone town and Mâcon river. The climb of the day is Col des Écharmeaux. The passes are the reason to go.
Oingt looks as though someone has poured honey over a hill. The village stands at the heart of the Pierres Dorées, the Golden Stones country of southern Beaujolais, and its houses are built of a limestone coloured by iron into every shade from butter to rust. Steep cobbled lanes wind up toward a medieval tower and a church, and the whole place is on the list of France's most beautiful villages, a title that here feels earned rather than marketed.
Read the complete Oingt golden village write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Oingt golden village sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Beaujeu vineyard road.
Beaujeu is the old capital of the Beaujolais, and the region takes its name from this small town rather than the other way round. You would not guess it from the size: just over two thousand people, a few streets climbing a hillside, a church and a good deal of cellar space under the houses. The valley of the Ardières runs right through it, and the vineyards start almost at the last house, their rows following the slopes in neat stripes of green, then yellow, then rust as the year turns.
Read the complete Beaujeu vineyard road write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Beaujeu vineyard road is where this day stops to eat. Next is Col des Écharmeaux.
Écharmeaux is a pass in the French sense of the word: a gap in a rounded range of green hills, not a gasp of rock and snow. The col sits in the hills that separate the Beaujolais vineyards from the upper Loire country, a watershed where streams to the east head for the Saône and the Rhône and those to the west, near Chauffailles, join the Loire. You climb through pastures and cattle, past dark plantations of Douglas fir that the Beaujolais hills are known for, and arrive at a modest saddle with no drama at all.
Read the complete Col des Écharmeaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
This is where the road stops climbing. Next is Cluny stone town.
For several centuries, the biggest church in Christendom stood in this small Burgundian town, and today most of it is gone. The Abbey of Cluny was founded in 910 by William of Aquitaine, who gave the land to the monks and, unusually, freed them from any lord's control, answering only to the pope. Under a series of long-lived abbots, Cluny became the centre of a network of over a thousand monasteries across Europe and a powerhouse of medieval religion, art and politics. The third abbey church, begun in the late eleventh century, was the largest in Europe until St Peter's in Rome overtook it, with five aisles and two transepts.
Read the complete Cluny stone town write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cluny stone town, about halfway. Next is Mâcon river fuel.
Mâcon is the point where the Saône changes character. Upstream it is a slow, reedy river through meadows, and here it becomes a proper waterfront, with stone quays, a long bridge and the flat Bresse plain stretching away on the far bank. The town is the capital of the Mâconnais wine country, home to the poet Alphonse de Lamartine, and for a rider moving between Burgundy and the Beaujolais it is the natural place to do the dull but necessary things.
Read the complete Mâcon river fuel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Next is Back to Oingt.
Oingt is a village built of a stone that seems to have been dipped in honey. The limestone in this part of the Beaujolais is coloured by iron oxide, and in low sunlight it glows from pale cream to deep orange, which is why the region is known as the Pierres Dorées, the Golden Stones. Oingt perches on a hilltop, its old houses wrapped around a medieval keep and a church, with narrow cobbled lanes that curve and climb between walls hung with wisteria and roses. It has been named one of the most beautiful villages in France, and a handful of artisans' workshops and galleries occupy the old houses.
Read the complete Oingt write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 182 km.
Beaujeu vineyard road → Col des Écharmeaux is the logistics leg. Watch junctions, villages and speed changes, then let the roadbook do its job: move you out of the clutter without spending your best attention too early.
Col des Écharmeaux → Cluny stone town is the reward section in Lyon. Look through the bends, use legal pull-offs for photos and keep a little margin for tractors, cyclists and damp shade. The best ride here is smooth, not noisy.
Use Cluny stone town → Mâcon river fuel as clean positioning. Keep it tidy, ignore impatient traffic and save the enthusiasm for the good road ahead. The value here is not drama; it is arriving at the riding section with space, fuel and concentration intact.