Vanoise Gateway Overnight · part 2

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Lyon / Rhône-Alpes rides

   The Lignon du Forez comes out of the Monts du Forez with a cold, clean hurry, and by the time it reaches the plain around Boën it has cut itself a shallow gorge through old volcanic rock. This is the country west of Lyon and north of Saint-Étienne that most people cross on the autoroute without noticing, and that is exactly why it is pleasant. The Forez plain is a wide, flat bowl of pasture and orchards, and the mountains stand along its western edge like a wall with the road folded into the foot of it.

   Read the complete Lyon / Rhône-Alpes rides write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Lyon / Rhône-Alpes rides is where the day begins. Next is Photo stop near La Ricamarie.

2. 2. Photo stop near La Ricamarie

   La Ricamarie is a former mining town on the south-western edge of Saint-Étienne, where the coal basin meets the first slopes of the Pilat. For more than a century, the pits here produced the coal that fed the factories of the Stéphanois region, and the town still carries the marks of that history: workers' houses, old slag heaps grown over with trees, and a strong sense of community.

   Read the complete Photo stop near La Ricamarie write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Photo stop near La Ricamarie comes up about 80 km into the recorded legs. Next is Vanoise Gateway Overnight checkpoint 8.

3. 3. Neuville-sur-Saône

   Julius Caesar noticed the Saône. In his account of the Gallic Wars he wrote that the river flows with such incredible slowness that the eye cannot tell in which direction it is moving, and two thousand years later, standing on the quay at Neuville, you can see what he meant. The river here is wide, brown-green and almost still, and the reflections of the plane trees on the bank barely ripple.

   Read the complete Neuville-sur-Saône 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 233 km. Next is Back to Vanoise Gateway.

4. 4. Back to Vanoise Gateway

   This is the Isle Crémieu area, the low limestone plateau that pushes the river into a wide bend east of Lyon, and the landscape of fields, gravel pits, poplars and small villages has an unhurried feel.

   Read the complete Vanoise Gateway write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

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

   Planning note

   Back to Vanoise Gateway closes the day.