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.
327 km from Besançon to Besançon, about 6 h 09 of riding. It goes by way of Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans, Lac de Chalain, Bourg and back through Lac de Chalain. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from France into Switzerland - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 72 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Besancon sits in a tight loop of the Doubs river, almost an island, and above the loop a great rock rises more than a hundred metres. On top of it stands the Citadel, the fortress that the military engineer Vauban built for Louis XIV after the king captured the region from Spain in 1674. It is one of the twelve fortified sites that UNESCO listed together in 2008 as the Fortifications of Vauban, and it is a fine example of his work, with thick walls, bastions and long ramparts that follow the line of the rock.
Read the complete La citadelle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La citadelle is where the day begins. Next is Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans.
Claude-Nicolas Ledoux wanted to build an ideal city, and he started with a salt factory. The Saline Royale at Arc-et-Senans was built between 1775 and 1779 on the orders of Louis XV's administration, to boil brine into salt, and Ledoux designed it as a perfect half circle of buildings around the director's house, with the workers, the boiling halls and the management all arranged in a geometric order meant to express reason, hierarchy and efficiency. It never grew into the full circular city he imagined, but what was built is astonishing, and it was listed by UNESCO in 1982, later joined by the great saltworks at Salins-les-Bains.
Read the complete Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is Lac de Chalain.
Lac de Chalain is the largest natural lake in the French Jura, a long, green-blue lake set in a valley among forested limestone cliffs, and its shores were home to farming villages built on piles thousands of years ago. The remains of these villages, preserved in the lake bed, are part of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, listed by UNESCO in 2011. In the 1900s, when the lake level was lowered for a hydroelectric project, a dugout canoe and the remains of houses were found, and excavations since then have revealed a remarkable picture of life in the Neolithic.
Read the complete Lac de Chalain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 83 km into the recorded legs you reach Lac de Chalain. Next is Bourg.
Geneva's lake shore is not the only place where Switzerland feels close at hand, and the stretch north of the city, around Versoix, is one of the quietest. Versoix itself is a calm, lakeside town with a little harbour, a long promenade and a medieval-looking centre, and it is easy to forget how close the French border is.
Read the complete Bourg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bourg, about halfway. Next is back through Lac de Chalain.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lac de Chalain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Lac de Chalain sits at 221 km, about halfway. Next is back through Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans comes up about 292 km into the recorded legs. Next is La citadelle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La citadelle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La citadelle closes the day.
La citadelle → Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans → Lac de Chalain is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lac de Chalain → Bourg is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Bourg → back through Lac de Chalain is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Lac de Chalain → back through Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans → La citadelle is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.