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.
A proper escape from Lyon with roads worth waking up for. 679 km round from Épinouze - plan on about 10 h 05 of riding. On the way it passes near Riotord, Scenic stretch near Boën-sur-Lignon, near Marcigny and in Valleiry. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 59 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Next is High point near Riotord.
High point near Riotord comes up about 60 km into the recorded legs. Next is Scenic stretch near Boën-sur-Lignon.
about 167 km into the recorded legs you reach Scenic stretch near Boën-sur-Lignon. Next is Photo stop near Marcigny.
Marcigny is a small market town on the right bank of the Loire in southern Burgundy, in the heart of the Brionnais, a rolling country of green pastures, hedgerows and white Charolais cattle. It is also a land of Romanesque churches: within a short ride you can visit Semur-en-Brionnais, Anzy-le-Duc, Iguerande and many others, each with carved portals and capitals from the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The great abbey of Cluny lies to the east, and its influence is everywhere.
Read the complete Photo stop near Marcigny write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Photo stop near Marcigny, about halfway. Next is Lyon / Rhône-Alpes rides return.
The Romans brought water to Lyon from the Pilat massif, some eighty kilometres away, and the most impressive surviving section of their work stands at Chaponost, a few kilometres from the point. The Gier aqueduct, as it is called, crossed the valleys on arches of stone and brick, and at Chaponost a long line of them still marches across a field, some still carrying their channels. It is a remarkable sight, all the more so for being in an ordinary suburban setting, and it is easily reached by a short detour.
This stretch of country belongs to the border between the Drôme and the Isère, on a flat, fertile plain called the Valloire. It is a sleepy farming region, a land of walnut orchards, maize fields and low villages like Épinouze and Saint-Sorlin-en-Valloire, about fifty kilometres south of Lyon. The roads here are quiet, straight and bordered by hedges and poplars, and the air in late summer smells of cut hay and ripening fruit. It is not the Bugey, which lies far to the north-east, but the end of a long ride has a way of dropping you somewhere unexpected.