Isere river + Alps: France variety week

Ken Roberts

Sharon and I had lots of fun in early September doing rides around different sections of the Isere river -- see map + photos.

That region in the Rhone-Alpes is famous for the big climbs over high mountain passes. We discovered that it's also got lots of very pretty and interesting moderate and gentle riding nearby. Later we noticed that most of our riding was near the Isere river, which shares its name with the highest paved-road pass in Europe: Col de l'Iseran.

Here's the riding we did, from gentler to steeper:

• Lac d'Annecy west side bike path
• Aime - Bourg St Maurice bike path
• around Lac d'Annecy -- half road, half path
• valley farms + vineyards around Montmélian
• Versant du Soleil "balcony": Aime - Granier - Bourg St Maurice
• Col de l'Iseran from Val d'Isere

And there's other good riding we've done there on previous trips and more exploring we did driving in our car -- so we're eager to go back for lots more . . . also Hiking -- lots of famous spectacular trails around. We enhanced our variety with three days of mountain walking.

Our overall strategy: Just like home in USA we got ourselves and our tandem bike to the start of each day's riding by driving our (rental) car.

Details -- read more here.

Ken