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.
From Dijon it runs 351 km to Dijon; allow about 4 h 54 of riding. The stops in between: The Climats, Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans, Fortifications of Vauban and back through Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 43 km this is Burgundy Grand Cru Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Dijon sits at the top of the Côte d'Or, where the Burgundian plain meets the long limestone escarpment that carries some of the most expensive vineyards in the world. The UNESCO listing called the Climats of Burgundy covers those vineyards and the towns that grew around them, and the label's last word, cut short, means Dijon itself, the old ducal capital where the Valois dukes ruled a territory that rivalled the French crown. The Palace of the Dukes and Estates, now a museum and town hall, still dominates the central square, and the pedestrian streets around it are full of half-timbered houses and fine stone doorways.
Read the complete Les climats du vignoble de Bourgogne - Dij write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Les climats du vignoble de Bourgogne - Dij is where the day begins. Next is The Climats.
The Climats of Burgundy are, in plain terms, the vineyard plots of the Côte d'Or, each one with its own name and character, worked and described by monks and growers for nearly a thousand years. The word means little parcels of land with a specific soil, slope and exposure, and the idea is that two vines a few metres apart can yield wines that taste different. Near Ladoix-Serrigny and Beaune the slope faces east and south-east, and the great hill of Corton rises above the villages, covered in vines and crowned with woods.
Read the complete The Climats write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Climats comes up about 43 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 140 km into the recorded legs you reach Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans. Next is 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.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fortifications of Vauban, 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 sits at 235 km, about halfway. Next is back through The Climats.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Climats write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Climats comes up about 306 km into the recorded legs. Next is Les climats du vignoble de Bourgogne - Dij.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Les climats du vignoble de Bourgogne - Dij write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Les climats du vignoble de Bourgogne - Dij closes the day.
Les climats du vignoble de Bourgogne - Dij → The Climats is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Climats → Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans is 97 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans → Fortifications of Vauban is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fortifications of Vauban → back through Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Saline Royale d'Arc-et-Senans → back through The Climats is 96 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through The Climats → Les climats du vignoble de Bourgogne - Dij is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.