Alpe d’Huez and Oisans
A 349 km loop
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Why this ride
A rider’s loop: clean exit, memorable middle, calm return. 349 km round from Mornant - plan on about 7 h 15 of riding. It goes by way of Pollionnay, Scenic stretch in Chaleins and near Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne. near Chazelles-sur-Lyon is the high point.
Roadbook
- Fuel stop near Mornant
fuel
Mornant is a small town in the Monts du Lyonnais, about twenty-five kilometres south-west of Lyon. It sits on a plateau among orchards, vineyards and farmland, with views east over the Rhône valley and, on clear days, all the way to the Alps. The town has a medieval core with a fortified church and remains of its old walls.
The area has deep Roman roots. The great aqueduct of the Gier, which carried water to Roman Lugdunum, passed through this country, and impressive remains of its arches survive at Chaponost and in other places along its route. It was one of the longest aqueducts in the Roman world, and an extraordinary piece of engineering.
As a start and fuel stop, Mornant is practical. There are service stations and shops in and around town, and it is a good place to top up before heading south into the Pilat or west into the Monts du Lyonnais, where services become sparse. The roads here climb and wind through hills, orchards and woods, with frequent bends and good views.
Surfaces are generally good, though some minor roads are narrow and patched. Traffic can be busy on the main roads towards Lyon and Givors at commuting times, but the back roads are quiet. The Monts du Lyonnais are known for their fruit, especially cherries, apples and pears, and in season you will see stalls selling fresh produce along the roads.
- High point near Chazelles-sur-Lyon
pass
For more than a century, if you bought a good felt hat in France, there was a decent chance it came from Chazelles-sur-Lyon. This hill town in the Monts du Lyonnais was the capital of French hat-making, with factories turning rabbit fur into felt and felt into fedoras, bowlers and cloches for customers across Europe and beyond. The industry faded in the twentieth century, but one of the old factories now houses the Atelier-Musée du Chapeau, where you can watch the old machines at work and see hats worn by film stars and statesmen.
The town sits high on the western edge of the Monts du Lyonnais, where the hills look out over the wide Forez plain towards the Monts du Forez beyond. It is airy, green country: pasture, hedges, small woods and scattered farms, with the land rising and falling in long swells. The light up here is clear, and the wind can be brisk.
For riders, the high ground around Chazelles is a joy. The roads climb in short, winding sections, then run along ridges with views in every direction, before dropping into small valleys. Corners come thick and fast, many of them blind, and the surfaces are a patchwork of good and tired tarmac. Traffic is light, but watch for tractors and livestock trucks. In winter, frost and fog linger.
There is fuel in Chazelles itself and in Saint-Galmier and Feurs on the plain below. Saint-Galmier, just to the south, is home to the Badoit mineral spring, and the town is a pleasant place for a coffee. From the high point, look west across the Forez plain: on a clear day, you can see the whole of the Monts du Forez spread out like a backdrop.
- Pollionnay
finish
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.
- Scenic stretch in Chaleins
scenic
Chaleins is a village on the western edge of the Dombes, close to the river Saône, about thirty-five kilometres north of Lyon. It sits on the gentle slope between the plateau of the Dombes, with its countless ponds, and the broad valley of the Saône, with its meadows and poplars. Across the river, the hills of the Beaujolais rise in a green wave of vineyards.
The landscape here is soft and pastoral. Fields of maize and wheat, hedgerows, small woods and farms built of pisé, rammed earth, give the countryside a distinctive look. Many old buildings in the Dombes and the Val de Saône are made this way, with thick earthen walls on stone foundations and wide roofs to keep off the rain. The villages often have small churches and châteaux, some dating back to the Middle Ages.
The riding is easy and pleasant. The roads around Chaleins are mostly flat, with gentle curves and good surfaces, and very little traffic. Heading east, you climb onto the Dombes plateau, where the roads wind between ponds and woods. To the west, the bridges over the Saône at Montmerle and Belleville lead into the Beaujolais, where the riding becomes more varied, with steep climbs and tight bends through the vineyards.
There are no services in Chaleins itself, but fuel and food are available in Montmerle-sur-Saône and Saint-Trivier-sur-Moignans nearby. Montmerle has a pleasant riverside setting, and the views across the Saône to the Beaujolais hills are lovely, especially in the evening light.
- Photo stop near Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne
photo
Flowers are Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne's calling card. In summer every bridge over the little River Chalaronne is hung with geraniums, and the town has won national prizes for its displays year after year. Underneath the colour sits a fine old centre: half-timbered houses, a brick Gothic church and a huge covered market hall whose oak roof timbers were rebuilt after a fire centuries ago and still shelter the weekly market.
The town has a saintly connection too. In 1617, a young priest named Vincent de Paul was posted here, and it was in Châtillon that he founded his first charitable confraternity, the seed of the Daughters of Charity and the vast network of works that followed. A small museum and chapel recall his stay.
Around Châtillon spreads the Dombes, a plateau of shallow fishponds, farmland and woods, where the light on still water is soft and silvery in the morning. The roads are mostly flat, crossing between ponds with occasional sharp bends at farm corners, and traffic is light outside the towns. Herons, egrets and grebes are everywhere, and the bird park at Villars-les-Dombes, a short ride south, holds one of the largest collections in France. To the west, the land drops towards the Saône and the vineyards of the Beaujolais rise beyond.
Châtillon has fuel, bakeries, cafés and restaurants, and on market days the hall is full of local produce, including Bresse poultry and Dombes carp. It is a lovely place for coffee or lunch on the way south towards the Alps. Ride gently through the old centre; the streets are narrow, and pedestrians, especially on market mornings, have priority.
- Near La Tour-du-Pin, on the way back
swim
The geologist Déodat de Dolomieu, born in 1750 in the village that bears his family name, gave his name to the mineral dolomite and, through it, to the Dolomites, the most spectacular mountains of Italy. The village of Dolomieu lies a couple of kilometres from the point, near La Tour-du-Pin, in the rolling hills of the Bas-Dauphiné, between Lyon and the Alps, and it is a pleasant reminder that even quiet corners have their stories.
The landscape here is gentle and green, a patchwork of meadows, woods, orchards and small villages, with views of the Chartreuse and the Belledonne on clear days. It is the kind of countryside that riders cross on the way to the mountains without paying much attention, but on the way back, tired and hot, it is a welcome sight. La Tour-du-Pin is a small market town on the Bourbre river, with fuel, shops and restaurants.
For a swim, there are two fine lakes within reach. Lac de Paladru, about fifteen kilometres south, is a long, clear lake in a glacial valley, with beaches and bathing spots, and at its southern end, near Charavines, archaeologists have excavated the remains of a lakeside village from around the year 1000, preserved in the mud of the lake. Lac d'Aiguebelette, a little further east in Savoie, is one of the warmest natural lakes in France, and motorboats are banned, so the water is calm and clean, with wooded mountains rising above it.
The roads in the Bas-Dauphiné are quiet and winding, with good surfaces and little traffic, ideal for a relaxed ride back from the Alps. The hills offer gentle curves and changes of gradient, and the villages are pretty, with old stone houses and churches. On the way back from the Alpe d'Huez and the Oisans, the route to Lyon passes through Grenoble or skirts the Chartreuse, before descending to the plains. Summers are warm, and a swim in one of the lakes is the perfect way to cool off.
- Food stop near La Côte-Saint-André
food
Hector Berlioz was born in La Côte-Saint-André in 1803, and the town has never let anyone forget it. His family home is now a museum, and every summer a festival in his name fills the courtyard of the château with orchestras. It is a fine reason to linger, but the town has other charms too: a huge medieval covered market hall with a timber roof, steep lanes, and the distillery of Cherry Rocher, which has been making liqueurs here since the early eighteenth century.
The town clings to a slope on the edge of the Bièvre plain, a broad, flat corridor between Lyon and Grenoble, with the wooded Chambaran plateau rising to the south. From the higher streets, the view on a clear morning takes in the long blue line of the Vercors, the Chartreuse and, beyond, the snowy summits of Belledonne. That view is a good tonic before heading towards the Oisans and the hairpins of Alpe d'Huez.
The roads around here are relaxed and rural. The Bièvre itself is flat and straight, but the Chambaran lanes wind through chestnut woods and small valleys with very little traffic, ideal for warming up tyres and minds. Watch for gravel in the forest corners and for farm machinery in summer. The plain can be windy, and in midsummer the heat bounces off the fields.
La Côte-Saint-André has fuel, bakeries, cafés and restaurants around the market hall, and it is a much nicer place to eat than the motorway service areas on the A48. A plate of local walnuts or a gratin dauphinois brings you firmly into Isère territory. Fill up here; once you head into the Chambaran woods the villages get small, and the next big service town is Grenoble or Voiron.
- Back to Alpe
finish
Saint-Martin-en-Haut and Saint-Didier-sous-Riverie lie in the Monts du Lyonnais, a range of rounded, wooded hills about thirty kilometres west of Lyon, where the city's suburbs give way to orchards, cattle and small farms. It is gentle country, the sort of place where Lyonnais go for a Sunday drive, and for a rider, the roads are fun and quiet, with lots of small curves, short climbs and pretty views toward the Alps on clear days. The dot marks a point on the long ride home after a day in the high mountains.
The route has covered a lot of ground. Alpe d'Huez, in the Oisans, is one of the most famous climbs in cycling, with twenty-one numbered hairpins that rise about a thousand metres in thirteen kilometres, and the stage finish has become a place of pilgrimage for Tour de France fans, particularly the Dutch, who have a corner named after them. The road is wide and well surfaced, and on a motorcycle it is more fun than hard. The valley below, with its glaciers and high passes, includes the Col du Lautaret and the Galibier, two of the great Alpine crossings, which are closed in winter.
Mont Ventoux, in Provence, is another cycling legend. Its summit, at 1,912 metres, is a bare, white crown of limestone that looks like snow even in July, and the road up from Bédoin is long and exposed, with a strong wind called the mistral often blowing from the north. A memorial near the top marks the spot where the British cyclist Tom Simpson died in 1967 during the Tour. The view from the top, over the Rhône valley and the Alps, can stretch for a hundred kilometres.
By contrast, the Monts du Lyonnais are soft and green. The roads wander through villages built of golden stone, past cherry and apple orchards, and the local cuisine is simple and hearty, with sausages, cheese and fruit tarts. Traffic is light, but cyclists are common, especially at weekends.
Fuel is easy in Saint-Martin-en-Haut, with a station and a bakery, and larger supermarkets can be found in Saint-Symphorien-sur-Coise. In the evening, the light over the hills is warm, and you can sometimes see the white line of Mont Blanc on the horizon, a last reminder of the day.