CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
A 1058 km round trip from Thonon-les-Bains - roughly 17 h 47 in the saddle. The stops in between: Modane and Nice. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,300 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean over seventeen passes including the Iseran at 2,764 m.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 168 km this is Route des Grandes Alpes, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
The Route des Grandes Alpes officially begins on the shore of Lake Geneva at Thonon-les-Bains and ends some seven hundred kilometres later on the Mediterranean at Menton. Standing here at the start, with the lake spread out flat and silver in front of you and the Swiss shore hazy on the far side, it is hard to believe that within an hour you will be climbing into proper mountains. That contrast is the whole romance of the thing.
Read the complete Near Thonon-les-Bains write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Waypoint 1 is where the day begins. Next is Waypoint 2.
This spot lies in the Maurienne, the long valley of the river Arc that runs from the high Alps down toward Chambéry, and the town of Modane sits at the heart of it. For centuries this was the way across the mountains to Italy, via the Mont Cenis pass, and in the nineteenth century engineers drove a railway tunnel under the Fréjus massif, which opened in 1871 and gave the town its role as a border station. A road tunnel followed in 1980. Today Modane is quiet and a bit industrial, but its position makes it a natural stopping place.
Read the complete Near Modane write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Waypoint 2 comes up 135 km in. Next is Waypoint 3.
The Route des Grandes Alpes is a French invention of the early twentieth century, a line drawn from Lake Geneva to the Mediterranean to link the high passes, and at this point on it you are in the quiet southern part, Haute-Provence, where the Alps run out of height and begin to smell of thyme.
Read the complete Waypoint 3 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
269 km in you reach Waypoint 3. Next is Waypoint 4.
Nice rises from a wide bay of pebbles and blue water, with a ridge of hills behind it, and it has been a seaside resort since the English began wintering here in the eighteenth century. The Promenade des Anglais, the seafront boulevard they paid for, still runs for several kilometres along the shore, lined with palms, pale hotels and deckchairs, and the old town, Vieux Nice, behind the Cours Saleya flower market, is a tangle of ochre and pink houses with laundry hanging out of windows. Castle Hill, a wooded bluff at the eastern end of the bay, gives a view over the whole sweep of the coast. Italian influence is strong, as the city only became French in 1860, and the food shows it. Try socca, a chickpea pancake, a pan bagnat sandwich or a proper salade niçoise.
Read the complete Nice write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Waypoint 4, about halfway. Next is back through Waypoint 3.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Waypoint 3 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Waypoint 3 sits at 538 km, about halfway. Next is back through Waypoint 2.
This spot lies in the Maurienne, the long valley of the river Arc that runs from the high Alps down toward Chambéry, and the town of Modane sits at the heart of it. For centuries this was the way across the mountains to Italy, via the Mont Cenis pass, and in the nineteenth century engineers drove a railway tunnel under the Fréjus massif, which opened in 1871 and gave the town its role as a border station. A road tunnel followed in 1980. Today Modane is quiet and a bit industrial, but its position makes it a natural stopping place.
Read the complete Near Modane write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Waypoint 2 comes up 673 km in. Next is Waypoint 1.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Near Thonon-les-Bains write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Waypoint 1 closes the day.