CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
From Lamure-sur-Azergues it runs 990 km to Civrieux; allow about 16 h 43 of riding. On the way it passes Lentilly, near La Motte-Servolex, Scenic stretch near Biol and Guilherand-Granges. The climbs: near Roanne and in Chamagnieu. It tops out at about 950 m. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Lamure-sur-Azergues is a small village in the upper valley of the Azergues, in the Haut-Beaujolais, the wild, wooded northern part of the Beaujolais hills. This is not the country of vineyards that most people associate with the name: up here the hills are covered with forests of Douglas fir and beech, with pastures and small farms in the clearings. The Azergues river winds through a narrow valley, and the villages are small and scattered.
Read the complete Fuel stop near Lamure-sur-Azergues write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Route Napoléon Weekend is where the day begins. Next is Route Napoléon Weekend checkpoint 8.
West of Lyon, the land rises into soft hills, and the city's suburbs dissolve into villages, orchards and woods. To the north lie the vineyards of the Beaujolais, and on clear days you can see the Alps, even Mont Blanc, far to the east across the plain.
Read the complete Near Lentilly write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Route Napoléon Weekend checkpoint 8. That is the ride. Next is Photo stop near La Motte-Servolex.
La Motte-Servolex sits at the western edge of Chambéry, at the southern tip of the Lac du Bourget, the largest natural lake entirely in France. Behind it rises the long, wooded ridge of the Mont du Chat and the Chaîne de l'Épine, and on clear days the view over the lake and towards the Alps is magnificent.
Read the complete Photo stop near La Motte-Servolex write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
124 km in you reach Photo stop near La Motte-Servolex. Next is Scenic stretch near Biol.
North-west of Grenoble, the hills of the Bas-Dauphiné fold into a quiet country of meadows, woods and ponds that the locals call the Terres Froides, the cold lands, because of their damp, clayey soils and frosty winters. Biol is one of its villages, scattered across the slopes with farms and a church, and it gives a good taste of a part of Isère that most visitors drive straight past on the motorway.
Read the complete Scenic stretch near Biol write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Scenic stretch near Biol, early in the day. Next is Lyon / Rhône-Alpes rides return.
Across the Rhône from Valence, the Ardèche bank rises fast. Guilherand-Granges and Saint-Péray sit at the foot of the slope, and above them the ruined castle of Crussol stands on its limestone crest like a broken tooth, visible from half the valley. This stop is on that western side, between Toulaud and Soyons, where the suburbs give way to scrub, vines and the first real hills of the Vivarais.
Read the complete Near Guilherand-Granges, 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 248 km, early in the day. Next is Food stop near Ambert.
Ambert has a round town hall, and it is not the strangest thing about the place. This small town in the Livradois-Forez, deep in the Massif Central, is also the home of fourme d'Ambert, one of France's oldest cheeses, a mild blue made in tall cylinders. And in a valley just outside town, the Moulin Richard de Bas still makes paper by hand, as it has done for centuries, using water power and old wooden hammers. The writer Jules Romains set his comic novel Les Copains here, and the town has a good-natured, slightly eccentric feel.
Read the complete Food stop near Ambert write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Food stop near Ambert is where this day stops to eat. Next is High point near Roanne.
You top out here; the road stops climbing. Next is Back to Route Napoléon.
The Azergues valley is the quiet back door into the Beaujolais, and this is where the day ends. Mont Saint-Rigaud, the highest point of the Beaujolais, rises to the north.
Read the complete Route Napoléon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Back to Route Napoléon. That is the ride. Next is Vercors Balcony Roads.
Next is Scenic stretch near Montluel.
Montluel is the kind of small French town that most people only see as a sign on the A42, which is a shame. It climbs a slope above the little River Sereine, on the escarpment that the locals call the Côtière, the step where the Rhône plain to the south rises up onto the plateau of the Dombes. For centuries this was border country: Montluel belonged to the House of Savoy and only became French with the Treaty of Lyon in 1601, and the old centre still has the narrow, defensive feel of a frontier town.
Read the complete Fuel stop near Montluel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Scenic stretch near Montluel comes up 557 km in. Next is High point in Chamagnieu.
High point in Chamagnieu is the summit of this stretch. Next is Photo stop near Vienne.
Vienne has been a city for two thousand years and it still shows it. On the east bank of the Rhône, about thirty kilometres south of Lyon, the Romans built a prosperous colony here, and the temple of Augustus and Livia still stands in the centre, as complete as when it was built, with its Corinthian columns facing a small square of cafés. Nearby a Roman theatre climbs the hillside, and every July it fills with music for a jazz festival that has become one of the best known in Europe.
Read the complete Photo stop near Vienne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Photo stop near Vienne, late in the day. Next is Vercors Balcony Roads checkpoint 8.
South of Lyon, the Rhône broadens into a powerful, heavily engineered river, lined with locks, power stations and chemical plants on the east bank. The west bank, where around Irigny, Charly and Vernaison, is softer: a strip of villages, orchards and market gardens rising gently towards the Monts du Lyonnais. Rides begin and end here for a simple reason: it sits outside the congested core of the city but within easy reach of it.
Read the complete Near Irigny write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vercors Balcony Roads checkpoint 8 closes the day. Next is Food stop near Saint-Symphorien-sur-Coise.
Food stop near Saint-Symphorien-sur-Coise is where this day stops to eat.
867 km in you reach Lyon / Rhône-Alpes rides return. Next is Back to Vercors.
North-east of Lyon, the land flattens into the Dombes, a plateau of glacial clay that is dotted with a thousand or more man-made ponds. Civrieux, Saint-André-de-Corcy and Mionnay sit on its southern edge, where the ponds, called étangs, glimmer among fields and woods, and herons and egrets stand in the reeds. Since the Middle Ages, the people of the Dombes have farmed fish in these ponds, draining each one every few years to harvest carp and then growing crops in the dry bed before refilling it, a rhythm that has shaped the landscape and the local menu.
Read the complete Vercors write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back to Vercors closes the day.
Fuel stop near Lamure-sur-Azergues → Near Lentilly is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Photo stop near La Motte-Servolex → Scenic stretch near Biol is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Scenic stretch near Biol → Near Guilherand-Granges, on the way back is 103 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Food stop near Ambert → High point near Roanne is 87 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
High point near Roanne → Back to Route Napoléon is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Back to Route Napoléon → Fuel stop in Civrieux is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fuel stop in Civrieux → Scenic stretch near Montluel is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Scenic stretch near Montluel → High point in Chamagnieu is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
High point in Chamagnieu → Photo stop near Vienne is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Photo stop near Vienne → Near Irigny is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Food stop near Saint-Symphorien-sur-Coise → Near Amplepuis, on the way back is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.