Why this ride
220 km from Champagnole to Champagnole, about 4 h 19 of riding. The stops in between: From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai, Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans, Saline de Salins-les-Bains and Fortifications of Vauban.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Lac de Chalain and Fortifications of Vauban
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 220 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 4 h 19
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
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.
Scenic road chapters
Lac de Chalain → From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai
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 41 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 35 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. 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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Lac de Chalain is where the day begins. Next is From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai.
2. From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai
Salins-les-Bains lies at the bottom of a deep, narrow valley in the Jura, squeezed between two forested ridges, each crowned by a fort, and its wealth for most of history came from beneath its streets. Deep underground, salty water flows through layers of rock salt, and for over a thousand years the people of Salins pumped it up and boiled it in great pans to make salt, a precious commodity before refrigeration, used to preserve food and taxed heavily by the crown. The Grande Saline, the great saltworks, is now a museum, and you can walk through its underground galleries, where a huge hydraulic wheel and pump from the nineteenth century still turn, lifting brine from the depths.
Read the complete From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans.
3. 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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 51 km into the recorded legs you reach Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans. Next is Saline de Salins-les-Bains.
4. Saline de Salins-les-Bains
Salt built Salins-les-Bains, and the name gives it away. A salt spring, rich in brine, rises in this narrow valley in the Jura, and people have been boiling it for salt since Roman times or earlier. In the Middle Ages the saltworks were among the largest in the region, and the spring made the town and its lords rich. The Grande Saline, the great saltworks, is now a museum, and together with the Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans, the neoclassical complex designed by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, it has been listed by UNESCO.
Read the complete Saline de Salins-les-Bains write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Saline de Salins-les-Bains, about halfway. Next is Fortifications of Vauban.
5. Fortifications of Vauban
Victor Hugo was born in Besançon in 1802, and so were the Lumière brothers, the pioneers of cinema, a generation later. The capital of Franche-Comté sits in a tight loop of the river Doubs, with the old town on the peninsula inside the loop and the citadel on a rock at the neck, closing the only side not protected by water. The citadel was built by Vauban, Louis XIV's great military engineer, after the French conquest of the region in the late seventeenth century, and it is one of the twelve groups of Fortifications of Vauban listed by UNESCO in 2008.
Read the complete Fortifications of Vauban write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Fortifications of Vauban sits at 124 km, about halfway. Next is back through Saline de Salins-les-Bains.
6. back through Saline de Salins-les-Bains
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Saline de Salins-les-Bains write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Saline de Salins-les-Bains comes up about 152 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans.
7. 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.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 168 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans. Next is back through From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai.
8. back through From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai, late in the day. Next is Lac de Chalain.
9. Lac de Chalain
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lac de Chalain 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 220 km.
Leg by leg
Lac de Chalain to From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai
Lac de Chalain → From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai to Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans
From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai → Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans to Saline de Salins-les-Bains
Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans → Saline de Salins-les-Bains is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Saline de Salins-les-Bains to Fortifications of Vauban
Saline de Salins-les-Bains → Fortifications of Vauban is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fortifications of Vauban to back through Saline de Salins-les-Bains
Fortifications of Vauban → back through Saline de Salins-les-Bains is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Saline de Salins-les-Bains to back through Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans
back through Saline de Salins-les-Bains → back through Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans to back through From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai
back through Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans → back through From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai to Lac de Chalain
back through From the Great Saltworks of Salins-les-Bai → Lac de Chalain is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.