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.
238 km from Chamonix-Mont-Blanc to Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, about 3 h 31 of riding. The stops in between: Les Marais de Saint-Jorioz, Le Crêt de Chatillon, Secteur des Mongets and back through Le Crêt de Chatillon. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 115 km this is Route des Grandes Alpes, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Mont Blanc does not so much loom over Chamonix as lean on it. The valley is a deep, narrow trench of the Arve river with the highest peak in the Alps, just under 4,810 metres, standing right at the top of it, and the glaciers come down so close that you can see the cracks in the ice from the main street. Modern mountaineering has a birthday here. In 1786 two local men, Jacques Balmat and Michel Paccard, reached the summit for the first time, and the town has been selling the idea of going up high ever since. In 1924 it also hosted the first Winter Olympics.
Read the complete Chamonix write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chamonix is where the day begins. Next is Les Marais de Saint-Jorioz.
Lake Annecy is often called the cleanest lake in Europe, and on a summer day its water is such a startling shade of turquoise that it looks retouched. The lake fills a long valley among the limestone mountains of Haute-Savoie, with the town of Annecy at its northern end, and its western shore, around Saint-Jorioz, is a flat area of reeds and meadows, the Marais de Saint-Jorioz, where prehistoric people built villages on piles. The remains are part of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, listed by UNESCO in 2011, and lie hidden under the water and the marshes.
Read the complete Les Marais de Saint-Jorioz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Les Marais de Saint-Jorioz comes up about 115 km into the recorded legs. Next is Le Crêt de Chatillon.
The Crêt de Châtillon is the summit of the Semnoz, the long wooded mountain that rises above the western shore of Lake Annecy, and from the top, at around 1,700 metres, the view on a clear day is one of the finest in the French Alps: the whole lake below, the Bauges and the Aravis around, and, to the east, Mont Blanc in all its glory. Sites with names like Châtillon and Les Mongets along this shore preserve the remains of villages built on the edge of the lake thousands of years ago.
Read the complete Le Crêt de Chatillon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least about 121 km into the recorded legs you reach Le Crêt de Chatillon. Next is Secteur des Mongets.
Sevrier, on the western shore of Lake Annecy, is home to an unusual industry: bells. The Paccard foundry, which has been casting bells since the late eighteenth century and moved to Sevrier in the 1980s, has made bells for churches and carillons all over the world, and its museum explains how they are designed, cast and tuned. It is a curious contrast to the quiet lakeshore just below the village, where the Secteur des Mongets marks the remains of a prehistoric village built on the edge of the lake, now under water. It is one of the sites included in the World Heritage listing of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, and divers have found wooden piles, pottery and tools in the lake bed.
Read the complete Secteur des Mongets write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Secteur des Mongets, about halfway. Next is back through Le Crêt de Chatillon.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Le Crêt de Chatillon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Le Crêt de Chatillon sits at 105 km, about halfway. Next is back through Les Marais de Saint-Jorioz.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Les Marais de Saint-Jorioz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Les Marais de Saint-Jorioz comes up about 131 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chamonix.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chamonix write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chamonix closes the day.
Chamonix → Les Marais de Saint-Jorioz is 115 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Les Marais de Saint-Jorioz → Le Crêt de Chatillon is 6 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Le Crêt de Chatillon → back through Les Marais de Saint-Jorioz is 6 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Les Marais de Saint-Jorioz → Chamonix is 108 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.