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.
Scenery first, traffic last, with checkpoints that make sense on a bike. Out of Saint-Jean-de-Bournay and back again: 665 km, roughly 10 h 47 in the saddle. The stops in between: near Cognin, Scenic stretch in Buellas and Saint-Yan. near Saint-Martin-du-Frêne is the high point. It tops out at about 1,300 m. Long stretches are under trees.
There is a particular kind of French country town that exists mainly to serve the farms around it, and Saint-Jean-de-Bournay is a good example: a square with plane trees, a church, a café where the same men have been drinking their morning coffee for decades, a pharmacy, a bakery and a weekly market. It sits in a shallow valley in the hills of the Bas-Dauphiné, about twenty-five kilometres east of Vienne, and it does not try to be anything else.
Read the complete Fuel stop near Saint-Jean-de-Bournay write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Next is Food stop near Cognin.
Food stop near Cognin is where this day stops to eat. Next is High point near Saint-Martin-du-Frêne.
This is where the road stops climbing. Next is Scenic stretch in Buellas.
Buellas is a small village in the Bresse, just west of Bourg-en-Bresse in the Ain department. The Bresse is a flat, fertile region of farms, hedgerows, ponds and woods, known above all for its chickens: the Bresse chicken, with its blue feet, white plumage and red comb, matching the colours of the French flag, is the only poultry in France with its own protected designation of origin. Farmers here raise them in open pastures, and they are prized by chefs across the country.
Read the complete Scenic stretch in Buellas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Scenic stretch in Buellas, about halfway. Next is Lyon / Rhône-Alpes rides return.
White cattle, hedges and Romanesque bell towers: that is the Brionnais, the corner of southern Burgundy where the Loire bends towards Digoin. This stop lies on the plain near Saint-Yan, a village best known in France for its airfield, where the national civil aviation school trains its pilots. Small aircraft circle overhead most days, and the open grassland around the runway gives the place an unusually wide sky.
Read the complete Near Saint-Yan, on the way back write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lyon / Rhône-Alpes rides return sits at 343 km, about halfway. Next is Photo stop near Noirétable.
Noirétable is a small town in the Monts du Forez, close to the border between the Loire and Puy-de-Dôme departments, on the old route between Lyon and Clermont-Ferrand. Its name comes from the dark forests of the Bois Noirs that cover the surrounding hills, and the town has the feel of a mountain market town, with granite houses, a church and a cool, fresh climate even in summer.
Read the complete Photo stop near Noirétable write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Photo stop near Noirétable comes up about 459 km into the recorded legs. Next is Loire Gorges and Le Puy checkpoint 8.
East of Lyon, the Rhône splits into channels and lakes on its way into the city, and the vast Grand Parc de Miribel-Jonage has been made out of that watery landscape. This finish lies just above it, on the edge of the Côtière, the steep slope that separates the river plain from the Dombes plateau, between Thil, Beynost and Saint-Maurice-de-Beynost.
Read the complete Near Miribel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Loire Gorges and Le Puy checkpoint 8 closes the day. Next is Back to Loire Gorges.
This corner of the Isère département lies between Lyon and Grenoble, in a broad, gentle valley called the Bièvre, the work of glaciers that once poured out of the Alps and left a plain of gravel and clay. Saint-Jean-de-Bournay, Beaurepaire and Eyzin-Pinet are market villages of two to four thousand people, with stone churches, farmhouses and fields of maize, orchards and pasture. It is a rural, unhurried landscape, rarely visited by outsiders, and the roads are quiet.
Read the complete Loire Gorges write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Back to Loire Gorges. That is the ride.
Food stop near Cognin → High point near Saint-Martin-du-Frêne is the logistics leg. Watch junctions, villages and speed changes, then let the roadbook do its job: move you out of the clutter without spending your best attention too early.
Treat High point near Saint-Martin-du-Frêne → Scenic stretch in Buellas as bend craft. Brake early, look high through the turn, and keep throttle changes gentle. It is more satisfying to link ten clean bends than rescue one silly one.
Scenic stretch in Buellas → Near Saint-Yan, on the way back is the reward section in Lyon. Look through the bends, use legal pull-offs for photos and keep a little margin for tractors, cyclists and damp shade. The best ride here is smooth, not noisy.
Photo stop near Noirétable → Near Miribel is shade riding: beautiful, cooler and sometimes slick. Expect damp patches, leaves, gravel and wildlife where the trees meet the road.