Jura Crest Scenic Road from Nyon

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Nyon

   Nyon was a Roman town before most of Europe had names, founded by Julius Caesar around 45 BC as Colonia Iulia Equestris, a settlement for veteran cavalry on the shore of Lake Geneva. Columns from the Roman forum still stand by the lake, and a small museum in the old basilica shows what remains. Today it is a pleasant town of about seventeen thousand people with a castle on the hill, a waterfront promenade and a market, and it has the quiet, wealthy air of a place that has been well looked after for two thousand years.

   Read the complete Nyon write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Nyon is where the day begins. Next is St Cergue.

2. 2. St Cergue

   Above Nyon and Lake Geneva, the Jura rises in long, wooded ridges, and Saint-Cergue sits on the first real shelf of them, about a thousand metres above sea level. The village is small, with just under two thousand people, but it has a surprisingly big view: on a clear day the lake lies below and the Alps are lined up beyond it, with Mont Blanc as the white presence at the end. Those who live in the Geneva basin come up here for cooler air and some snow, and the station at the heart of the village hints at why.

   Read the complete St Cergue write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   St Cergue comes up about 14 km into the recorded legs. Next is Col de la Givrine.

3. 3. Col de la Givrine

   The Col de la Givrine tops out at 1,228 metres, which is hardly a heroic height, but the pass has a character all its own. It lies on the Jura ridge between Saint-Cergue and the French resort of Les Rousses, and it is one of those places where the border is a few paragraphs of paperwork and a different bakery. Bring your passport or ID card, because the checkpoint is real, even if you are often waved through.

   Read the complete Col de la Givrine write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 18 km into the recorded legs you reach Col de la Givrine. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Le Brassus, mostly downhill.

4. 4. Le Brassus

   Le Brassus is at the quiet top end of the Vallée de Joux, a long glacial trough in the Vaud Jura that holds the Lac de Joux and a handful of villages strung together along its length. It is a hard place to farm, cold and high, and over the centuries the people here turned to winter work indoors. That is how the valley became the home of Swiss watchmaking at its most complicated. Audemars Piguet, founded here in 1875, still has its roots in Le Brassus, and other prestigious names have workshops nearby. The houses look like ordinary farmhouses, but behind some of the windows people are assembling movements with hundreds of parts.

   Read the complete Le Brassus write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Le Brassus, about halfway. Next is Sainte Croix.

5. 5. Sainte Croix

   Sainte-Croix lies on a sunny shelf of the Vaud Jura, with the Chasseron ridge rising behind it and the Swiss plateau stretched out far below. The town is about four thousand people, but it punches above its weight in one very specific area: mechanical things that make music. For more than a century this was the capital of Swiss music boxes and automata, and the industry grew into a wider tradition of precision engineering. The Paillard company, makers of Bolex cameras and Hermes typewriters, was founded here, and the town's wealth shows in the solid old buildings along the main street.

   Read the complete Sainte Croix write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Sainte Croix sits at 75 km, late in the day. Next is Creux du Van.

6. 6. Creux du Van

   Creux du Van is a huge natural amphitheatre carved into the limestone of the Neuchâtel Jura, a curved cliff about a kilometre and a half long and well over a hundred metres high, ringing a deep bowl of scree and forest. It looks like a giant's quarry or a collapsed volcano, but it was made by ice and water, which worked away at the soft layers of rock over many thousands of years. From the rim, at about 1,450 metres, you look down onto treetops and across to the Alps on a clear day, and the Mont Blanc range is often visible on the horizon.

   Read the complete Creux du Van write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   The route ends here after 137 km.