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.
Built for flow, views and useful stops rather than navigation busywork. Out of Tignieu and back again: 486 km, roughly 7 h 16 in the saddle. The stops in between: in Ceyzériat, Scenic stretch near Tarare and Boën-sur-Lignon. in Neuville-les-Dames is the high point.
A little north of Tignieu-Jameyzieu, the land runs down to the Rhône, and the river makes a broad, braided sweep across the plain before it reaches Lyon. On the far bank lies the Plaine de l'Ain, a wide gravel terrace of farms and industrial zones, and upstream the hills of the Bugey begin to rise. It is a landscape of crossings: bridges at Loyettes and Lagnieu, gravel pits turned into lakes, and long views towards the mountains.
Read the complete Fuel stop near Tignieu write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Next is Food stop in Ceyzériat.
Ceyzériat lies at the foot of the Revermont, just east of Bourg-en-Bresse, where the flat Bresse plain meets the first limestone ridge of the Jura. Behind the village, the wooded slopes rise steeply, and the hill of Mont July above it offers a viewpoint over the Bresse, with the Alps sometimes visible far to the south-east on clear days.
Read the complete Food stop in Ceyzériat write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Food stop in Ceyzériat is where this day stops to eat. Next is High point in Neuville-les-Dames.
The name gives away the story. Until the Revolution, Neuville-les-Dames was the seat of a chapter of noble canonesses, a community of aristocratic women who lived here under a religious rule but without the strict vows of nuns. To be admitted, a young woman had to prove several generations of noble ancestry on both sides of the family. They lived in comfortable houses around the church, wore elegant habits and could leave to marry if they wished. The chapter was dissolved in the 1790s, but the dames stayed in the village's name.
Read the complete High point in Neuville-les-Dames write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
This is where the road stops climbing. Next is Scenic stretch near Tarare.
Muslin made Tarare's fortune. From the eighteenth century onwards the town wove fine, light cotton cloth that was sold across Europe, and every few years it still celebrates the fact with the Fête des Mousselines, when the streets and façades disappear under kilometres of draped fabric in a riot of colour. Outside festival time, Tarare is a quiet valley town in the hills between the Beaujolais and the Lyonnais, with old mill buildings and a long main street.
Read the complete Scenic stretch near Tarare write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Scenic stretch near Tarare, about halfway. Next is Lyon / Rhône-Alpes rides return.
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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lyon / Rhône-Alpes rides return sits at 249 km, about halfway. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Photo stop near La Ricamarie comes up about 332 km into the recorded legs. Next is Vanoise Gateway Overnight checkpoint 8.
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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vanoise Gateway Overnight checkpoint 8 closes the day. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Back to Vanoise Gateway. That is the ride.
Food stop in Ceyzériat → High point in Neuville-les-Dames 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.
This High point in Neuville-les-Dames → Scenic stretch near Tarare stretch is for rhythm and scenery. Keep your head up, let the view breathe, and resist turning every open bend into a target. Stop once properly rather than half-stopping everywhere.
Scenic stretch near Tarare → Near Boën-sur-Lignon, on the way back is the technical section. Hairpins, gradients and mixed traffic can stack up quickly; use low drama inputs, stay wide of centre lines and expect buses or riders appearing exactly where optimism says they will not.
Photo stop near La Ricamarie → Neuville-sur-Saône can flow quickly, but only if you keep village limits and junction sightlines sacred. Fast connectors are where rides get untidy when fatigue creeps in.