Ardèche Gorge Long Day · part 2

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Food stop near Cluny

   For about two centuries, the largest church in Christendom stood in this small Burgundian town. The abbey of Cluny, founded in 910, grew into the head of a vast network of monasteries across Europe, and its third church, begun at the end of the eleventh century, was longer than any other until St Peter's in Rome was rebuilt. Popes came from its ranks, kings sought its blessing. Then came the Revolution: the abbey was dissolved, sold, and used for decades as a stone quarry. What remains is a fragment, a single soaring arm of the transept with its octagonal bell tower, and the empty space around it is almost more eloquent than the building would have been.

   Read the complete Cluny write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Food stop near Cluny is where the day begins. Next is Photo stop near Montbrison.

2. 2. Photo stop near Montbrison

   Montbrison was for centuries the capital of the Forez, the old county that occupies the upper Loire basin west of Lyon, and the town still carries itself with a certain dignity. Its great Gothic church, the Collégiale Notre-Dame-d'Espérance, rises above the rooftops, and just beside it stands La Diana, a medieval hall whose wooden vaulted ceiling is painted with hundreds of coats of arms of the noble families of the region. Few rooms in France give you such a direct sense of medieval heraldry.

   Read the complete Photo stop near Montbrison write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Photo stop near Montbrison comes up about 176 km into the recorded legs. Next is Ardèche Gorge Long Day checkpoint 8.

3. 3. Brignais

   In 1362, on the slopes above Brignais, a royal army sent to clear out bands of unemployed mercenaries, the Tard-Venus, who were ravaging the Lyon area during a lull in the Hundred Years' War, was soundly defeated by them. It was an embarrassing moment for the French crown, and the mercenaries went on plundering the region for some time afterwards. Today there is little trace of the battle, and Brignais is a busy town of some twelve thousand people on the south-western edge of Lyon, in the valley of the Garon.

   Read the complete Brignais 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 243 km.