Chartreuse Forest Passes

3 passes in 620 km, topping out at 1780 m

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Why this ride

Built for flow, views and useful stops rather than navigation busywork. A 620 km loop that starts and ends near Châtonnay, about 11 h 29 of riding. The climbs: near Sarras, Scenic stretch in Roche-la-Molière and near Saint-Just-en-Chevalet.

Roadbook

1. Fuel stop near Châtonnay fuel

   Châtonnay is a farming village in the Bas-Dauphiné, on the gently rolling ground between Bourgoin-Jallieu and the Bièvre plain. Its surroundings are typical of this part of Isère: a mix of maize and wheat fields, pastures, hedges and small woods, with stone farmhouses and church towers on the low ridges.

   About twenty-five kilometres to the east lies the Lac de Paladru, a lovely glacial lake surrounded by hills. Its waters have preserved the remains of lake villages from the Neolithic and from around the year 1000, when a community of farmer-knights lived on the shores. The archaeological finds are displayed in a museum at Charavines, and the lake is popular for swimming and boating in summer.

   As a start and fuel stop, Châtonnay is close to the A43 and to Bourgoin-Jallieu, where there are plenty of services. The village itself has limited facilities, so it is wise to fill up in Bourgoin or La Côte-Saint-André before setting off into the hills. From here, the roads east towards the Chartreuse are excellent, climbing gradually through the hills before the dramatic limestone cliffs of the massif come into view.

   The local roads are winding and pleasant, with short climbs, blind bends and good views. Surfaces are generally good, and traffic is light. Watch for farm vehicles and gravel at field entrances. In early morning, mist often lies in the hollows, and the light over the hills is beautiful.

2. High point near Sarras pass

   Sarras lies on the Ardèche bank of the Rhône, opposite Saint-Vallier, where the valley narrows between steep granite slopes. Behind the village, the river Ay comes tumbling out of the Ardèche hills through a deep, wooded gorge, and that gorge is the reason to be here.

   The road up the valley of the Ay towards Satillieu and Lalouvesc is one of the finest in the northern Ardèche. It climbs steadily through the gorge, with the river rushing below, then emerges onto the high plateau, where the views open up over a sea of wooded hills. Above the river, perched on a rocky spur near Saint-Romain-d'Ay, stands the sanctuary of Notre-Dame d'Ay, a place of pilgrimage since the Middle Ages, with a chapel and a castle ruin overlooking the gorge.

   This is the Ardèche Verte, the green northern part of the department, very different from the limestone gorges of the south. The rock here is granite, the forests are of chestnut, pine and beech, and the villages are built of dark stone. Lalouvesc, at the top of the climb, is a pilgrimage town dedicated to Saint John Francis Regis, with a large basilica.

   The roads are winding and often narrow, with plenty of bends, steep gradients in places and surfaces that range from good to rough. Traffic is light. Fuel and food are available in Sarras and Saint-Vallier, and in Satillieu and Lalouvesc higher up. As a high point, the plateau above the gorge offers views across the Rhône valley to the Alps on clear days.

3. Scenic stretch in Roche-la-Molière pass

   Coal made Roche-la-Molière. The town sits on the western edge of the Saint-Étienne basin, and for generations its hillsides were dotted with pit heads, slag heaps and miners' terraces. The mines are long closed, the spoil tips have grassed over, and today it is a quiet residential town of around ten thousand people with a château on its hill and good views back towards the city and the dark ridge of the Pilat beyond.

   If you are riding out of Saint-Étienne, this is where the urban sprawl finally loosens. Head west and north and you drop towards the Loire gorges, where the river has carved a deep, wooded trench and been dammed into the long Lac de Grangent. The roads along the gorge rim are a joy: tight, cambered and lightly used outside summer weekends, with medieval ruins perched on rocky spurs above the water. The Saint-Victor-sur-Loire side is particularly good for a pause by the lake.

   South-east, across the city, rises the Massif du Pilat, a granite ridge with beech and fir forests and roads that climb to more than a thousand metres, with views over the Rhône valley to the Alps on a clear day. It makes a fine contrast with the post-industrial basin you start from.

   Saint-Étienne itself is an underrated place: it built arms, bicycles and ribbons, and its old Manufrance mail-order company was once known across France. The football club and its green shirts are a local religion. For practicalities, Roche-la-Molière has fuel, supermarkets and bakeries, and the wider Saint-Étienne area has everything a rider could need. Traffic can be heavy at rush hour, so a mid-morning departure makes the climb out of the basin far more pleasant.

4. Photo stop near Saint-Just-en-Chevalet pass

   In the Monts de la Madeleine, the hills between the Loire and the Allier, Saint-Just-en-Chevalet sits high on a ridge, a small village of granite houses where the main road from Lyon to Clermont-Ferrand once brought a steady stream of travellers. The motorway now runs to the south, and the village has returned to a quieter life, surrounded by forests, meadows and the occasional pond.

   The landscape here is remote and green, with dense forests of fir, spruce and beech, especially in the Bois Noirs, the dark woods that cover the higher ground to the west. These forests once hid uranium mines, operated in the second half of the twentieth century, now closed and slowly being reclaimed by nature. The meadows are grazed by Charolais cattle, and in summer the air smells of hay and pine.

   The riding is excellent, with roads that climb and descend through the forests and over the ridges, offering views over the Loire plain to the east and the mountains of Auvergne to the west. The old national road is wide and fast, with long curves, while the minor roads are narrower and twistier, with very little traffic. Surfaces vary, and in winter, snow and ice are possible at higher elevations. Fog is common in the valleys in autumn.

   Saint-Just-en-Chevalet is small, so do not count on finding everything you need. Fuel is more reliably found in Roanne to the east or Thiers to the south-west, both larger towns with full services. Thiers, perched on a steep hillside, is the cutlery capital of France and worth a stop to see its knife workshops. Next, the road crosses towards the Chartreuse, a long day away across the Rhône valley.

5. Food stop in Saint-Amour food

   Saint-Amour sits at the very southern tip of the Jura department, where the first ridges of the Jura mountains meet the flat Bresse plain. The town is old and compact, with narrow streets, a church and a few remnants of its medieval past, and it has the relaxed feel of a place on the border between two worlds: the farms and chicken runs of the Bresse to the west, and the forests and limestone of the Revermont to the east.

   Its name has a romantic ring, but it comes from a pair of early Christian martyrs, Amator and Viator, whose relics were brought here, according to tradition. The town's history is tied to the counts of Burgundy and the Franche-Comté, and it changed hands several times before becoming French in the seventeenth century.

   As a food stop, Saint-Amour is a good choice. There are a few restaurants and cafés in town, and the food of the region is rich and satisfying: Comté cheese from the Jura mountains, Bresse chicken, morel mushrooms, smoked sausages from Morteau and Montbéliard, and the wines of the Jura, including the distinctive vin jaune. Not every restaurant will have all of these, but you will rarely eat badly.

   The riding around Saint-Amour is excellent. The roads east into the Revermont climb through forests and limestone valleys, with plenty of bends and short, steep climbs. To the north, the roads lead towards Lons-le-Saunier and the heart of the Jura. Traffic is light, and surfaces are generally good. Fuel is available in town.

6. Near Moirans-en-Montagne, on the way back swim

   Moirans-en-Montagne is a small town of about two thousand in the Jura, where the mountains of Franche-Comté are laid out in long, parallel ridges, and it has a surprise for the visitor: a museum of toys, one of the best in France, in an old convent, which celebrates the local tradition of toy-making in wood and plastic. The Jura has a history of small workshops using local timber, producing clocks, pipes, toys and spectacles, and that heritage is part of the area's character. Arinthod, a village of about thirteen hundred, is a handsome little market place with an arcaded square and a scattering of old houses.

   The reason this point is tagged for swimming is the Lac de Vouglans, which lies just to the east. It is an artificial lake, formed by a dam on the river Ain in 1968, and about thirty-five kilometres long and winding like a fjord, it is one of the largest reservoirs in France. The water is clear and deep, and the beaches and bays attract swimmers, sailors and kayakers in summer, with several supervised swimming areas and lakeside cafés. The lake is surrounded by wooded cliffs and has a real mountain flavour.

   For motorcyclists, the Jura is one of the best-kept secrets in France: roads that curve through forest, over passes and through the gorges of the Ain, the Valouse and the Bienne, with long, smooth bends and little traffic. The Cascades du Hérisson, a series of waterfalls in a wooded valley a short ride away, are a famous sight, with a path along the stream that takes an hour or two to walk. The Chartreuse, named in the ride, is far to the south-east, so this place is more of a northern neighbour.

   For fuel and supplies, Moirans, Saint-Claude and Lons-le-Saunier are the places to head for, and the area's food is another reason to come: Comté cheese, aged for months in caves, smoked sausage from Morteau, and the yellow wine, vin jaune, which is made in a way found nowhere else. Winters are cold and snowy, and the higher roads may be closed. Summer is warm, though storms are common, and autumn light is golden. Watch for cattle on the road and for cyclists.

7. Near Chaponost finish

   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.

   The point itself lies near Brindas and Messimy, on the western edge of the Lyon agglomeration, where the city meets the first hills of the Monts du Lyonnais. These hills are a patchwork of orchards, meadows, woods and small villages, with views back over the city and, on clear days, the Alps on the eastern horizon. Mont Blanc can sometimes be seen from here, a white shape floating above the haze.

   The rides that finish here come back from the east, from the Bugey, the Chartreuse and the Vercors, often after a long day of mountain roads. The final stretch involves crossing or skirting Lyon, which can be slow and frustrating at rush hour, so try to time your return for the evening, after the peak. Once you are on the west side of the city, the roads become quieter and more pleasant, winding up into the hills.

   The local villages have bakeries, cafés and small restaurants, and there are fuel stations and supermarkets in the larger towns nearby. For a proper dinner, Lyon is close enough to make an evening trip worthwhile. The Monts du Lyonnais themselves are worth exploring on another day, with a dense network of small roads, tight bends and gentle climbs, and very little traffic. Spring, when the fruit trees are in flower, is particularly beautiful, but autumn, with the leaves turning and the air crisp, is lovely too.

8. Back to Chartreuse Forest finish

   Cattle graze here in a landscape that few tourists see. The hills are low, the villages are small and the sky is big, a very different world from the limestone cliffs of the Chartreuse that gave the ride its name.

   The roads are slow, quiet and curvy in a gentle, rural way. They follow ridges and cross shallow valleys, with bends that are tight enough to keep you awake and not so tight as to be dangerous. The surface is usually fine, though farm traffic leaves mud on the road in wet weather. The area is sometimes called the Terres Froides, the cold lands, because of its heavy clay soil and chilly winters, and the mist that lies in the hollows on an October morning explains the name. In spring and early summer, the hedges are full of flowers and the air smells of hay.

   Local history is rooted in farming. The old Bonnevaux forest nearby was a medieval monastic estate, and the Cistercians who settled here cleared and managed the land for centuries. Bourgoin-Jallieu, an old textile town, printed cloth for the whole of France in the nineteenth century, and its museum tells the story of the trade. The villages have large stone farms and old churches, and a number of châteaux hidden among the trees.

   For fuel, Bourgoin-Jallieu is the nearest town of any size, with stations, supermarkets and restaurants, and the larger village of Saint-Jean-de-Bournay lies closer. Champier and Châtonnay have bakeries and small shops, but you should not rely on them late in the day or on Sundays. A local walnut cake or a plate of cheese from a village shop is a good snack, as the Isère region is known for its walnuts and for Saint-Marcellin cheese.

   As a finish, it is gentle and unpretentious, with open skies and quiet lanes that let the day end slowly.

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