Ready for an early start
The Cortambert Cycle Club met this morning for a 41km ride which went through some of the prettiest villages imaginable. I loved this ride as, like Escher’s perpetual staircase, it seemed to be downhill all the way until the last few kilometres back up the hill to Cortambert.
We headed north via Bray to Lys, then to Chapaize and Champagny-sous-Uxelles, and followed the river to Bresse-sur-Grosne and Sercy, ending up in St Gengoux-le-National. We had an easy ride back along the voie verte past Cormatin before turning off at Massilly for the upward climb back to Cortambert.
The profile of our route
It’s wonderful landscape for cycling. You can stay within the Grosne Valley which is relatively flat, or you can tackle the challenging ascents over the hills into the next valley. And there’s very little traffic. We must have met half a dozen motorists at most during our ride. If you want to keep off the roads the voie verte makes cycling very easy with such slight inclines that you hardly notice.
Preparations are being made for a rather bigger event, the Tour de France, which departs from Liège in Belgium on June 30th . There will be a rest day in Mâcon and on Wednesday July 11th we will see the start of stage 10, a 194 km ride towards Switzerland, climbing the 1500m Col du Grand Colombier on the way.
This rather puts this morning’s ride into perspective!
