Ardèche Gorge Long Day

A 511 km loop

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Why this ride

Leave the city behind and spend the day on roads with texture. Out of Saint-Savin and back again: 511 km, roughly 9 h 27 in the saddle. The stops in between: Varennes-Saint-Sauveur, near Cluny, near Montbrison and Brignais. near Hauterives is the high point.

Roadbook

1. Fuel stop near Saint-Savin fuel

   Saint-Savin is a village in the hills just north of Bourgoin-Jallieu, in the part of Nord-Isère where the land starts to fold up towards the Isle Crémieu and the Rhône. It is quiet, green country: hedges and walnut trees, ponds in the hollows, stone farmhouses, and narrow roads that seem to have been laid down by following the cows.

   Just south lies the valley of the Bourbre, once a great marsh that was drained over the centuries to create farmland, with the new town of L'Isle-d'Abeau built in the 1970s on its edge. The old villages on the slopes above it, Saint-Savin among them, kept their rural character, and the views south across the valley to the Terres Froides and the distant Alps are lovely in the early morning.

   As a start and fuel stop, the practical side is handled by Bourgoin-Jallieu, a few minutes away, which has plenty of service stations, supermarkets and bakeries. The A43 motorway is close for a quick run east towards the Alps. But the real pleasure is in the minor roads around Saint-Savin, which wind over the hills and through small woods, with short climbs, blind bends and good views.

   Surfaces vary from good to patchy, and you will meet tractors, cyclists and the occasional herd crossing. Traffic is light. For a long day towards the Ardèche, this is a calm place to start, with a coffee in Bourgoin and the hills waking up around you.

2. Near Varennes-Saint-Sauveur, on the way back swim

   The Bresse is flat, green and fiercely proud of its chickens. This stop lies deep in it, between Varennes-Saint-Sauveur and Saint-Trivier-de-Courtes, close to the line where Saône-et-Loire meets the Ain. The landscape is a quilt of small fields, hedges, damp meadows and woods, crossed by slow rivers that drain north towards the Seille and the Saône.

   Look at the farmhouses. Many are timber-framed with brick infill, low and long, and some still carry the strange cheminée sarrasine, a tall, ornamented chimney with a little roof, a regional speciality that has nothing to do with Saracens despite the name. Saint-Trivier-de-Courtes is known for them, and several are preserved in the area. The other icon is the Bresse chicken, with its white feathers, blue feet and red comb, the first poultry in France to win its own appellation.

   Louhans, the nearest larger town, holds a big weekly market under long medieval arcades, with live poultry sold alongside everything else. It is one of those French market scenes that has barely changed in a century.

   As for swimming, the Bresse is not a lake country. The rivers are slow and muddy, and most ponds are private fishing waters. Look for designated bathing areas in local leisure parks, which open in summer, or simply accept that this is a rest stop rather than a plunge.

   The riding is relaxed. The roads are straight or gently bending, often lined with trees, with good visibility and little traffic. The danger comes from farm machinery, mud at field entrances after rain and the occasional loose dog. Wind can be strong across open ground.

   Fuel and shops are in the larger villages and in Louhans. Order chicken if a restaurant offers it, cooked in cream with morels if you are lucky.

3. Food stop near Cluny food

   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.

   Walk through the abbey precinct and you can feel the scale. Digital reconstructions in the visitor centre show the church as it was, and the town around it still follows the lines of the old monastery, with Romanesque houses, towers and gates scattered through the streets. The national stud farm, established by Napoleon, occupies part of the old abbey grounds, and you may see horses being exercised.

   For lunch, Cluny has a good selection of cafés and restaurants around the abbey, serving Burgundian classics and Charolais beef, which comes from the pastures just to the west. A few kilometres north, the ecumenical community of Taizé attracts thousands of young pilgrims every year, a modern echo of Cluny's spiritual pull.

   Getting here from Mâcon is half the fun. The road climbs over the hills of the Mâconnais, through vineyards and woods, with tight bends and fine views, before dropping into the valley of the Grosne. Another route passes near the Roche de Solutré and the vineyards of Pouilly-Fuissé. Traffic is light, the surfaces are mostly good, and the scenery changes constantly. The old railway line between Cluny and Mâcon is now a greenway for cyclists, so expect bikes at the crossings. Cluny is small, but it has the basics; for a wider choice of fuel and shops, the towns around Mâcon are the better bet.

4. Photo stop near Montbrison photo

   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.

   The town sits at the meeting point of two very different landscapes. To the east stretches the Forez plain, flat and dotted with ponds, the course of the young Loire marked by trees. To the west rise the Monts du Forez, a long granite ridge climbing to the Hautes Chaumes, high, open moorland grazed by cattle in summer and buried in snow in winter, with views across half of central France.

   The riding is excellent. Roads climb from Montbrison into the mountains in long, winding sections through pine and beech forest, and once you reach the high moors, the views open up dramatically. The road to the Col de la Croix de l'Homme Mort and the routes across the Hautes Chaumes towards Pierre-sur-Haute are among the best in the Massif Central. Surfaces vary, and winter closes the highest roads.

   Montbrison is also the home of the fourme de Montbrison, a mild, creamy blue cheese with an orange rind, made in the surrounding mountains. Pick up a piece in town for a picnic with a view. Fuel, food and coffee are plentiful. For a photo, the climb into the mountains above the town gives a fine view over the Forez plain.

5. Brignais finish

   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.

   The town has grown rapidly as a suburb, with shopping centres, business parks and housing estates, but it has kept a small old centre with a church and a few old houses. The surrounding villages, like Orliénas and Soucieu-en-Jarrest, are more rural, with orchards, meadows and views over the Lyonnais hills. In Soucieu, more arches of the Roman aqueduct that carried water to Lyon can be seen in the fields.

   The Ardèche rides that start and finish here head south, down the Rhône valley, to the gorges of the Ardèche, one of the most spectacular natural sights in France. The fastest way is the A7 motorway, but it is busy and boring, so most riders prefer the roads along the west bank of the Rhône, through the vineyards of the Côte-Rôtie and Condrieu, or across the hills of the Pilat. The Pilat massif, south of Lyon, has some excellent roads, winding through forests and over passes, with views over the Rhône valley and the Alps.

   Brignais has plenty of fuel stations, supermarkets and fast food, and it is a convenient place to stock up before a long day. Coming back in the evening, the traffic around Lyon can be heavy, so allow extra time. The weather in the Lyon area is continental, with hot summers and cold winters, and the mistral can blow strongly down the Rhône valley, making the riding gusty and tiring. Spring and autumn are the most pleasant seasons.

6. Scenic stretch near Le Péage-de-Roussillon scenic

   The Rhône corridor south of Vienne is one of the busiest transport arteries in Europe, with the river, the A7 motorway, the railway and the N7 all squeezed into the valley, and Le Péage-de-Roussillon sits right in the middle of it. The town grew up as a toll station on the old road, hence the name, and in the twentieth century it became home to a large chemical platform whose chimneys and pipework still dominate the riverbank.

   Neighbouring Roussillon has a more elegant claim to fame. In 1564, during a royal tour of France, the young King Charles IX stayed at the Renaissance château here and issued the Edict of Roussillon, which fixed the first of January as the start of the year throughout the kingdom. Before that, different regions began the year on different dates, often at Easter. The château, a fine Italianate building, still stands.

   For riders, the valley floor is about getting through rather than enjoying, and the N7, the old road to the south made famous by summer holidays of the 1950s and 60s, can be slow. But the hills on either side are another matter. To the west, across the Rhône, the roads climb steeply into the Ardèche and the Pilat, with tight bends and spectacular views over the valley. To the east, the Drôme des Collines offers quieter, rolling roads through orchards and woods.

   Fuel and food are plentiful in the valley. As a scenic stretch, it is the views from the hills above, looking down on the great river and its traffic, that make the biggest impression.

7. High point near Hauterives pass

   In 1879 a country postman named Ferdinand Cheval tripped over an oddly shaped stone on his delivery round near Hauterives. He picked it up, took it home, and spent the next thirty-three years building a palace out of stones he collected on his rounds, carrying them in his pockets, then in baskets, then in a wheelbarrow. The result, the Palais Idéal du Facteur Cheval, is one of the strangest and most moving buildings in France, a fantastical mass of towers, grottoes, animals and inscriptions, admired by the Surrealists and now a protected monument.

   Hauterives itself is a small village in the valley of the Galaure, in the Drôme des Collines, a rolling landscape of low hills, walnut groves, orchards and woods north of Romans. The high ground around it rises gently above the valley, giving views over the hills towards the Vercors in the east and the Rhône valley in the west.

   The riding here is pleasant and varied. The roads wind through the hills, with frequent bends, short climbs and descents, and generally good surfaces. Traffic is light away from the main roads. The Galaure valley road is a pleasant run, and the routes into the hills offer more challenge and better views. The Vercors, with its dramatic cliffs and gorges, is not far to the east.

   The palace draws many visitors, especially in summer, so expect crowds around Hauterives. The village has cafés and restaurants, and fuel is available in the larger towns nearby. Cheval is buried in the village cemetery, in a tomb he also built himself.

8. Back to Ardèche Gorge finish

   The Ardèche Gorge, with its limestone cliffs and the great natural arch of the Pont d'Arc, lies about two hundred kilometres to the south, and the place on the map is somewhere far less dramatic: the flat, farmed country of the Nord-Isère, east of Lyon, around L'Isle-d'Abeau. This is a landscape of fields, ponds, low hills and small towns, in the old province of the Dauphiné. L'Isle-d'Abeau itself is a new town, planned in the 1970s to relieve pressure on Lyon, with housing estates, shopping centres and a business park, while the older villages of Saint-Savin, Trept and Salagnon retain their churches and farms.

   The district has more history than first impressions suggest. Bourgoin-Jallieu, a few kilometres away, was a textile town, famous for printed cloth, and the river Bourbre, which runs through the plain, once powered mills. To the north lies Crémieu, a medieval walled town with a covered market hall, and the hills of the Isle Crémieu, a limestone plateau with caves and small lakes. The airport of Lyon-Saint-Exupéry is close, so there is a steady sound of aircraft overhead.

   The roads here are not exciting, but they are pleasant, and they make a calm contrast to a day spent among gorges. They run straight and level through fields of maize and sunflowers, with a few gentle bends where a stream cuts across, and the surface is mostly good. Traffic is heavy near the motorway interchanges and the new town, and lighter on the back roads. In summer the sun is strong, and afternoon thunderstorms can roll in. In winter the area is often foggy, with low cloud lingering in the plain.

   Fuel is easy here, with stations on the main roads near L'Isle-d'Abeau, and the supermarkets are open late. Bakeries in the villages have good bread and pastries, and a local speciality is the Saint-Marcellin, a soft creamy cheese from the Dauphiné, which you can find in most shops. The air smells of cut maize and wet earth, and the sky is wide. It is a good place to end a long journey, with a full tank, a bed nearby and no more mountains to worry about.

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