Dombes Lakes Easy Scenic · short arc

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Photo stop near Eyzin-Pinet

   Planning note

   Photo stop near Eyzin-Pinet is where the day begins. Next is Scenic stretch near Mornant.

2. 2. Scenic stretch near Mornant

   Two thousand years ago, engineers from Lugdunum ran an aqueduct through these hills to carry water from the Gier valley to the Roman city, a channel some eighty kilometres long that bridged valleys on stone arches. Around Mornant, sections of those arches still stand in the fields, weathered and patched with ivy, and stumbling upon them on a back road is one of the quiet pleasures of riding in the Monts du Lyonnais.

   Read the complete Scenic stretch near Mornant write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Scenic stretch near Mornant comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Lyon / Rhône-Alpes rides return.

3. 3. Sorbiers, on the way back

   Saint-Étienne made France's guns, bicycles and ribbons, and dug its coal from under its own streets. Sorbiers lies just north-east of the city, in the Jarez valley, where the industrial past gives way to green hills and small farms. The Monts du Lyonnais rise to the north, the Pilat to the south, and the city sprawls in the valley between.

   Read the complete Sorbiers, on the way back write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   about 65 km into the recorded legs you reach Lyon / Rhône-Alpes rides return. Next is Food stop near Le Perréon.

4. 4. Food stop near Le Perréon

   Planning note

   Somewhere to get off the bike, about 191 km into the recorded legs. Next is High point in Gleizé.

5. 5. High point in Gleizé

   Planning note

   High point in Gleizé sits at 150 km, about halfway. Next is Dombes Lakes Easy Scenic checkpoint 8.

6. 6. Chasselay

   In June 1940, as the German army swept south, a unit of Senegalese tirailleurs fighting for France defended the approaches to Lyon at Chasselay. After they surrendered, many of the African soldiers were separated from their white comrades and massacred. Two years later, a cemetery was built for them in the style of a West African tata, a walled enclosure of red earth, with gates and pointed towers. It stands on the edge of the village today, one of the most moving war memorials in France.

   Read the complete Chasselay 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 244 km. Next is back to Dombes Lakes Easy.

7. 7. back to Dombes Lakes Easy

   Saint-André-de-Corcy is a village on the southern edge of the Dombes, a flat plateau of clay and water north of Lyon that is unlike anywhere else in France. Over the centuries, monks and landowners dug a thousand or so shallow ponds, called étangs, across the clay to raise fish, and the whole landscape is a patchwork of water, reeds, meadows and little woods, with farmhouses built of brick and timber. The dot lies at the southern edge of this strange country, with Mionnay just beside it.

   Read the complete Dombes Lakes Easy write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   back to Dombes Lakes Easy closes the day.